“It’s time, Dave.”
Dave stopped his headless chicken routine, stared aghast at Dark. Before he could speak, the other man rushed to him, grabbed him in a crushing bear-hug. Like a lover imparting sweet nothings, he whispered into his ear, “Time to die...” With that, he released Dave and ran towards the door of the church. Another tremor hit the church, this time accompanied by a thunderous roar. Dave reached out to steady himself against the end of a pew.
At the door, Dark stopped and turned back to face Dave. Slowly, he extended an arm in a beckoning gesture. “It can’t be stopped now, Dave. The prophecy will be fulfilled. Come with me, let’s do this together. This one last thing, this one great thing.”
And Dave did move, took a faltering step towards the other man, and then another.
“Don’t be scared, Dave,” Dark continued, his voice low, calming, acting like a mantra hypnotising him. “We’re doing this together, you and I.”
His legs seemed to be moving of their own volition. He didn’t want to go outside with Dark, didn’t want to sacrifice himself, didn’t want to die, and yet somehow something was making him do exactly that.
Another huge crash came, like a bomb exploding, an IED, like the one that took Gary Wallace’s life. The man you saw after he was dead, just like those kids that died in the car crash, just like Mickey… The inner voice taunted him, reminding him of the proof that he was different, that everything Dark had told him was true, that the events playing out here were his destiny…
He continued his trance-like walk towards the door, saw the whiteness behind Dark where before had been a glorious view over rolling countryside.
Others like us have tried before and failed? The voice came again. No, a different voice this one, measured, clipped tones, different yet somehow familiar. Dave stopped walking, took pleasure in the change of expression on Dark’s face.
“We’re not the first,” he said. “You said so yourself.”
Dark smiled again but this one lacked conviction. “Come on, Dave, there isn’t time for this.”
Dave started walking again, but this time his stride was more purposeful. “Right time, right place, we’re both here…”
“Dave! Come on!”
“Two must die! Christ, that sounds like a bad tagline for a movie.” He laughed, surprised himself that he was capable of doing so. Another tremor hit the church, this one powerful enough to topple Dave over. He landed heavily on the stone floor of the church, wincing at the pain in his elbow and knee that absorbed most of the impact. “It has to be a double sacrifice, doesn’t it? The Beast requires both of us
Just do it…
or it won’t work!” A confidence he never knew he had flowed through him. The prospect of imminent death was obviously having a positive effect on him.
Panic flared in Dark’s eyes. He made as if to say something but then changed his mind and quickly spun round to run out through the door.
“Come back here, you bastard!” Dave yelled and scrambled to his feet. Feeling energy coursing through him, he ran to the open doorway and out through it. Immediately he was surrounded by a dense whiteness, cold and clammy against his face, his flesh. The effect was disorientating. All that was visible was the wall of the church behind him and the doorway through which he’d just exited.
Dark was nowhere to be seen.
He strode into the mist, relishing the coolness of it. Relished too how invigorated he felt. The gravel of the path crunched beneath his feet as he descended the slope of the churchyard. Headstones loomed at him through the white vapour as he moved past them. He reached the gate at the entrance of the churchyard. It was already open, suggesting that Dark had come this way, and he stepped through. A short slippery slope of grass brought him onto the paved road along which they’d made their approach the church what seemed a lifetime ago.
Another huge tremor hit and he found himself once more on the ground. He rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows. Ahead of him, just visible through the swirling tendrils of mist, something was happening. Another loud crash rent the air and the ground in front of him at the periphery of his vision was flung into the air. He had to roll to one side to avoid being hit by stones and clumps of soil that were thrown his way by the eruption.
Slowly, he got to his feet, all the while watching the area in front of him. From within the hole that had opened in the earth, from behind the wall of soil and stone the eruption had created, a writhing tube of flesh appeared, the tip waving from side to side as if testing the air. He watched in horror as more of the tube appeared, its diameter increasing as more was revealed, until it was the thickness of a man’s leg. Two more tentacles appeared, groping their way over the lip of the hole.
“Shit…” He took a step backwards, another, and bumped into the figure standing behind him. “Oh fuck!” He recoiled from the impact, swung round to see Dark standing there. “You scared the shit…” He choked on the words before finishing.
Dark had made no kind of response, not to his words, not even to the collision. He stared ahead, seemingly enraptured by what was happening in front of him, his gaze fixed on that, not even acknowledging Dave’s presence.
“Dark?” Dave waved his hands in front of the man’s face, but there was no response. He was in some kind of trance. Dave looked over his shoulder, saw the hole now covered with tentacles, six or seven of them at least. From their centre, rising slowly from the hole, a head appeared, elongated like that of a sheep or goat. A cluster of horns adorned the top of its skull.
Dark walked dreamily past Dave, moved towards the creature rising from the ground.
Just do it…
This had to be the moment, Dave knew it. Both he and Dark had to die at the hands of the monster. So it was written. A brief thought of why me? flitted across his mind before the reality that he was going to have to take control of things for possibly the first time in his life pushed it aside.
So, what did you do today? Ah, not much, just saved the world…
Adrenalin flooded his system, energising him, preparing him for the Thing That Had to Be Done. “Ah, fuckit…” he said, and bent down to pick up a rock the size of a house brick, thrown there by the explosive emergence of The Beast.
Just…
Dave ran to catch up with Dark and swung his arm to bring the rock crashing down onto the back of the other man’s head. The sound of the impact was sickening, a loud crack that he heard even above the noises made by the monster crawling out of the hole some twenty yards ahead of him. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Time slowed to a crawl. Pain flared in his arm from the exertions he had just put it through.
Dark stopped walking. Slowly, he reached up to the back of his head, where the rock had made contact. He ran his fingers through the hair there and then paused. Dave’s heart hammered as he watched the scene unfold. A huge gout of blood sprayed between Dark’s fingers and he screamed, a shrieking, piercing sound that hurt Dave’s ears – a cry of pain, frustration, anger.
The Beast emitted a roar to echo Dark’s wail, a cannon blast of sound that Dave felt as well as heard. Dark slowly turned to face him, lowering his hand as he did. It was covered in blood, stained bright red, the same colour as the eyes that stared at Dave with such loathing and malice. Dark opened his mouth to speak but instead of words, another gout of blood, this time almost black, spewed forth instead.
Dave backed away, fighting the nausea that was building within him. Even the adrenalin pumping around him could not quell the sick feeling in his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he managed to whisper.
Dark screamed again and reached a bloodied hand out towards Dave. Dave continued to back away, dropping the rock to the ground. The Beast continued to screech its rage. Dark took a step forward, but then faltered, his arm dropping back to his side. He coughed, more red to add to the pool around his feet, and then tilted his head slightly, his eyes appearing to come into focus. Tears welled up in them and spilt out over his cheeks, pink
from the diluted blood within them. He smiled and then toppled forwards onto the ground.
The creature bellowed one last time, the sound born of centuries of frustration, and disappeared back down into the hole from which it had emerged, slowly dragging its tentacles into the darkness, all the time screaming its rage, a banshee wail that echoed through the cold, damp air. And then a deathly silence, made all the more profound by the noises preceding it.
Dave stared at the body at his feet, at the catastrophic wound in the back of Dark’s head. His own tears came then as shock kicked in. He slumped to his knees, rocked back so that his arse rested on his heels.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
* * *
The sun hangs low in the sky, lends it a redness that casts tints on the high wisps of cirrus. The sound of cicadas seems tonight to be overwhelming, filling the air with its rhythmic susurrus. The relentless heat and humidity brings beads of sweat to your forehead, makes your shirt cling to your back, the nylon soaked through, becoming almost transparent.
You march in line towards the plane, still some hundred or so yards distant across the concrete of the runway. You glance down at the ground you walk over, see the cracks in the hard surface, the weeds pushing their way through, widening the gaps, crumbling the concrete. Nature reclaiming the world.
The man in line directly in front of you hawks noisily, a deep inhalation that rattles the phlegm from his throat. Turning nonchalantly to the left, he spits out the ball of snot, which arcs upwards before falling to earth. It is, you notice, black with streaks of bright red running through it. He walks on and you follow, maintaining your place in the line. His shirt is pink, the colour intensified by the setting December sun. Sweat patches are visible beneath his armpits. His spine is clearly defined by a line of wetness running down the middle of his back, to which his shirt clings in wrinkled folds. He carries a black briefcase in his right hand, that wrist bearing a chunky gold Rolex.
A sudden breeze picks up, a zephyr that spins across the runway disturbing the still air and bringing a welcome – but all too fleeting – coolness. You feel it on your forehead, on the dampness of your back, relishing its cold caress.
The line slows and comes to a stop as the passengers make their way up the steps into the belly of the Boeing 737. As you wait your turn to climb the steps, you glance around you, watch as the wind that cooled you moments earlier reaches the fringe of palm trees at the airport perimeter, ruffles the fronds as it passes through.
You are nervous of the flight ahead, nervous of what lies ahead for you in Kuala Lumpur. At least the flight is a short one. Maybe long enough to get some sleep, though. Perhaps you’ll have a chance to dream of the bridge, the dream that has such a calming influence on you.
Perhaps.
There is some hold-up on the plane. The line has not moved for a few minutes. You sigh, draw deeply of the humid air. The setting sun casts an orange glow over everything, reflects blindingly from the windows of the plane. Even in this beautiful light you can see the auras of your fellow passengers shimmering around them. Your “gift” is still new to you, still developing, but still you realise that what you are seeing here is different. To a man, all your fellow travellers have black auras.
A walkie-talkie belonging to one of the ground crew crackles to life and he waves to the stewards at the top of the boarding steps.
Slowly, the line of passengers begins to edge forward once more.
EPILOGUE
Alone in the church, Dave sat with his head in his hands. The stillness around him was reflected in his body. He’d finally stopped shaking after about half an hour had passed since…
Since he’d killed a man.
As if to confirm his guilt, he raised a hand to look at the dried bloodstains on it. It was quite something to come to terms with. Murder, albeit one carried out for the best of reasons – the very best of reasons. Quite something indeed. With the passing of time, cold reality had started to bite, and the knowledge of what he had done was weighing heavily upon him.
How could you?
The question was a valid one, and one he could still find no answer to. What was it within him that could have allowed him to kill another person? The knowledge that Dark was more than just a human being didn’t make any difference. It had been a creature of flesh and blood that he’d killed, a man – a man he’d conversed with, spent time with. Flesh and blood for sure, the evidence was all too clear to see on his hand. Something had acted within him, that surely was the case.
Had to be…
“You did it, Dave. You should be proud of yourself.”
Dave jumped at the sound of the voice behind him and turned to face the speaker. It was a further shock when he saw who it was, sitting in the pew behind him. But then, after the events of the day so far, it felt entirely reasonable to see his dead best friend.
“Mickey?”
Mickey grinned. “The very same!” He slid along the pew, got to his feet and walked around to sit next to Dave. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You have no idea how surreal this is,” Dave said in a monotone. “You’re dead, right?”
Mickey nodded. “For sure. Still, I won’t let a little thing like that get in the way of having a word with my best mate.”
Dave shook his head. “Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel better, doesn’t really make any of this easier to grasp. As I’m sure you’re aware. It’s great to see you, Mickey. Really it is – and I have to say you’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you - but what I need to know is, what I really need to know is, when do I wake up? When do I get to get on with my life and remember all this as the bad dream that it was?”
Mickey’s smile faded. “Except, of course, you know this isn’t a dream. Right?”
Dave felt the tears welling up. “Yeah. I know.”
Mickey reached out a hand and placed it on Dave’s shoulder. Dave flinched at the touch, then immediately relaxed. He spoke without looking at Mickey. “I can feel you. You’re a ghost – how can I feel you?” He made it almost to the end of the sentence before his voice began to waver.
“Ah shit. You know the answer to that already, Dave, don’t you?”
And now Dave did look at Mickey, though his vision was obscured by the tears filling his eyes. “I can feel you, speak to you, because I’m just like you.”
Mickey nodded, a sympathetic smile on his face. “The cycle has to begin again. The witnesses for the next generation must be selected. That’s how it works.”
“I won’t tell anyone. I’ll become a hermit. I’ve always fancied that as a lifestyle, anyway.”
“That’s not how it works, Dave.” He rubbed his friend’s shoulder as the tears began to flow in earnest. “That’s not how it works. Death and renewal, sacrifice and re-birth, the endless cycle.” Mickey laughed, a short bark, and slapped Dave on the back. “You did great, though. Shit, it’s not every day you get to prevent Armageddon!”
Dave managed to laugh through his tears. “Still, not the end of the world, eh?” And then they were both laughing, just two mates having a good time together.
“Can we sit here a while?” Dave asked, sniffing and rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “Just while I pull myself together?”
“Course you can, mate. Do anything you want. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
He took hold of Dave’s hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“All the time in the world.”
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Although Witnesses is a work of fiction, I have incorporated real events into the narrative. The witnesses themselves are mentioned in the Book of Revelations (and Dreschler’s quotation about the olive trees is taken directly from there) although I’ve taken some liberties with the prophesies to make them fit into the novel.
With regards to the four separate time periods covered in the book:
1914: The battle of Mons was the first engagement for the British Expeditionary Forc
e in World War One. The development of the battle (and its outcome) is as described in the novel, with the deployment of the salient perhaps leading to the downfall and subsequent retreat of the BEF. The legend of The Angels of Mons provided the inspiration for the “attack” of the demonic horde during that retreat. The atrocities perpetrated by Dreschler are based on the so called “Rape of Belgium”, a series of war crimes committed by the occupying German forces during World War One. The towns referred to in the novel did suffer at the hands of the German troops, and the library in Leuven was indeed burned to the ground as part of those atrocities.
1946: Although the descriptions of the geography of Virginia and Lynchburg in particular are from my own imagination, the Lynchburg State Colony did exist. Formerly known as the Virginia State Epileptic Colony, my attention was drawn to it by, of all things, a song – namely ‘Virginia State Epileptic Colony’ by Manic Street Preachers on their brilliant album Journal for Plague Lovers. The colony is a representation of a dark period of American history, part of a programme of eugenics in which women were actually sterilised if they were deemed to be “feeble-minded.”
1977: The hijacking, and crash, of Malaysia Airlines Flight 653 did occur, and still remains an unsolved case, although there is speculation that the Japanese Red Army were responsible. The shopping mall bombing is a product of my imagination. In a book dealing with synchronicity and overlapping realities, it was a nice surprise to discover that the city of Penang, in which this section is set, does actually have a monument to the fallen of World War One.
Present Day: East Lee does not exist, apart from in my own mind. The church that provides the location for this section’s denouement is based on a real location, St Aidan’s church in Thockrington, which does sit in majestic isolation on a spur of the Whin Sill in Northumberland. The journey to it is pretty much as described in the book, but is definitely worth making.
Witnesses Page 20