Until the End

by Rick Wood

  He’d had enough.

  He was so very, very close to exploding. He had travelled all this way for nothing. This was ridiculous.

  He picked up his phone again and went to dial Lorenzo’s number.

  The man moved in such a sudden motion that Oscar didn’t quite know what to do — he had met no one who looked this old and moved so quickly. Om was so quick, in fact, that Oscar could do nothing to stop him from grabbing the phone from Oscar’s hand.

  “What is this?” Om asked.

  “It’s an iPhone, give it back.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Everything, pretty much.”

  Om smiled at Oscar, a friendly, thank you for explaining smile — then threw the phone on the ground, smashing it beyond use.

  “Are you kidding me?” Oscar snapped, rushing to pick up the phone.

  The screen had come off in tiny pieces. The inside was bent. The battery was scraped.

  “Now I don’t have any way of checking on April,” Oscar said.

  “That matters to you?” Om asked.

  “Stop answering everything I say with a question!”

  “You don’t like questions?”

  “I don’t like people smashing my phone.”

  “Because you need your phone?”

  “Because it is my phone.”

  “And that is important to you?”

  “Shut. Up!”

  Oscar turned around. He had no way of phoning a taxi, and no way of looking at Google Maps to see where he was. He was screwed.

  “Why did you do that?” he demanded, turning back to Om.

  “Is that what you mean to ask?”

  “What? Yes, it is. The question I am asking is why you smashed my phone.”

  “You are asking the right question, but in the wrong way.”

  “Oh, because I’m shouting?”

  “It has nothing to do with shouting.”

  “Just please tell me why you smashed my phone.”

  “Your phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t need it.”

  “I need it to keep in contact with home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes. With my friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “Stop that!”

  He jabbed his finger at Om and realised his entire body had tensed. He felt his cheeks reddening, and his arms shaking.

  “My friend,” Om said. “I see no chance of you defeating Mara. You cling onto too much of this world and are so against the other.”

  Oscar waved him away and turned. Looked around. He couldn’t head back yet; he would have to stay the night. But where exactly?

  “Maybe you should give up,” Om continued. “I heard you’ve already done that once. Maybe you can give up again. And again, and again, and again…”

  “What is this?” Oscar said. “I mean, what are you on about? Are you trying to teach me some mystical lesson? I’ve had better mentors than this who have taught me lessons without needing to act like a–”

  “A what?”

  “I travelled a long way to find you. Do you know that?”

  “Travelled?”

  “I said stop that.”

  “Again, you do not understand. You measure your journey in hours, I imagine?”

  “Yeah. And money.”

  “Money?”

  “Well, I should have seen that coming…”

  He looked Om up and down. He hated how he looked so smug, yet, at the same time, not smug at all.

  “So you’re telling me you haven’t even defeated The Devil?” Oscar asked.

  “I defeat Mara every day.”

  “I mean, literally defeating him.”

  “There is no defeat.”

  Oscar sighed. He had a pounding headache.

  “This is why you lose,” Om said. “You give into temptation. You own this world, so it owns you.”

  “Oh, is that what it is? Thanks, now I can go back and win.”

  He walked toward the rooms, looking around. They were all comprised of stony, damp floors and cracked walls.

  “I can’t leave now,” Oscar said. “I’m knackered, and it’s late. Do you have a bed or anything? Somewhere I can sleep?”

  Om raised his arms.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Oscar asked.

  “Home is all around you. Sleep wherever you wish.”

  Om turned and walked away, leaving Oscar stumped.

  This was a huge mistake.

  14

  From his bag, Oscar took out his hoody and a few t-shirts. He laid his clothes out on the least stony bit of ground to create a makeshift pillow. It was hot, so a duvet wasn’t essential — but it was also raining. A few drips fell from the cracks between the stones above him, but the shelter kept most of him dry.

  He hadn’t expected to get much sleep, but he was so fatigued from the travelling and the walking that he eventually fell into a light slumber.

  He awoke a few times, but never fully. He would open his eyes, remember where he was, and return to a vacant sleep.

  It was in these moments, however, somewhere between asleep and awake, that they came to him.

  Three women. Each of them beautiful. Each with brown skin, long, black hair, and lusciously vibrant robes loosely fastened around their perfect bodies.

  The first approached him with something his body was severely lacking: water. She took Oscar’s head, rested it on her lap, and held an aged cup over his lips. She felt warm, the material of her robes soft, and her lap was welcoming. As he lay on her, he felt himself feeling happier, feeling less lost.

  She pressed the cup against his lips and poured. He drank.

  It felt like water, but better. Like it was the cleanest water; clean in a way our rivers no longer are. He was refreshed. Hydrated. And she smelt so good.

  She smiled down at him. He wanted her. Not just sexually, but for comfort. He wanted her body against his, her arms around him, and he wanted to feel her closeness forever.

  She whispered, her lips barely moving, but the silent words travelling succinctly to Oscar’s ears.

  “We serve at your feet, master.”

  She moved away, and Oscar reached his arm out for her, begging her not to go.

  But then the second one came.

  She knelt beside him. Took his head on her lap and spoke without moving her lips.

  “You hate the world, don’t you, Oscar?”

  “I do.”

  “You hate your friends, don’t you, Oscar?”

  “Always.”

  “You hate April. You hate everything about her. Don’t you?”

  “I hate her.”

  She lowered her forehead to his and allowed him to relish her closeness.

  She left, and as he reached out for her, the third and final woman took her place, just as beautiful and desirable as the others.

  She said nothing. She opened her hand, and beneath her robe was gold. Enough of it to keep him happy.

  But, seeing that this was not what Oscar sought, she opened her other robe, and revealed April.

  Her face. Alive. Healthy.

  He leant up and reached out for her. Attached himself to the image. Kept it for himself. Refused to let anyone else near it.

  And, as she stepped away, Oscar lay back on the ground that didn’t feel so uncomfortable anymore.

  The first one stroked her hand down his cheek, the tips of her fingers providing a soft sensation

  The second kissed him, a gentle press against his lips.

  The third mounted him.

  She took her robes down her left shoulder, then down the right.

  He desired her more than he had ever desired anything. Never mind this world, never mind fighting Mara — he had to touch her, had to feel her, had to be inside of her.

  “Leave!” boomed a male voice.

  Each woman looked up, startled, and backed away.“No!” Oscar cried.

  “Go!” boomed the voice again. />
  “Don’t make them leave!”

  Oscar leapt to his feet.

  Om stood in the doorway, the moonlight hidden behind him.

  The first woman vanished.

  “No!”

  Oscar reached out for the second woman, who also vanished.

  Oscar ran up to Om and swung his fists. Om backed up, staying out of reach.

  The third woman vanished.

  Oscar stopped swinging. Fell still. Looked over his shoulder at where the women had been.

  What had just happened?

  Who were they? How had they done that?

  Oscar turned back to Om, startled that he had tried to assault an old man.

  “I’m so sorry,” Oscar said.

  “I don’t have time to wait for you to grow up,” Om said. “Come with me.”

  Om turned and left.

  Oscar looked back over his shoulder once again, then followed.

  15

  Oscar and Om sat opposite each other, cross-legged.

  Om passed Oscar a bowl of rice, and Oscar ate it quickly. He felt desperately hungry. And, despite the woman having given him water, he felt so, so thirsty.

  “Did you drink from her?”

  Oscar nodded. Om looked downwards, disappointed.

  “You are a fool,” he said, handing over a bottle of water. “You will be even thirstier now. Drink this.”

  “I don’t understand. If she let me drink, how am I thirstier?”

  “The more of her thirst you quench, the thirstier you become.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Just drink.”

  Oscar drank a huge gulp of water, then finished his rice. Once he’d finished, he put the bowl down and looked at Om inquisitively.

  “Was that real?” he asked.

  “Depends what you mean by real.”

  “Were they actually there, or was it in my head?”

  “Both. And neither.”

  “Please stop doing this, I am trying to understand.”

  “Then listen.”

  “I am listening, I–”

  “No, you are asking questions. You cannot listen when you are talking.”

  “Fine.”

  Oscar waited. Om took a while, but Oscar forced himself to be patient, and waited for Om to speak.

  “It is said that Mara tried to tempt Buddha, not just once, but many times, and in many ways. One way he tried to do so was with his daughters. His beautiful temptresses.”

  “You are telling me that was The Devil’s daughters?”

  “What did I say about asking questions?”

  Oscar stopped speaking.

  “Mara has three daughters. But what you need to understand about Mara, and everything he commands, is that he is not a physical being as you believe him to be.”

  “But I–”

  Oscar stopped himself.

  “Yes, you saw him in Hell, and yes, he is physically inhabiting April. But he is in all of us already. As are his daughters.”

  Oscar repeated Om’s words to himself, trying to make sense of it all. He was struggling, but he tried.

  “Each daughter comes from the folly of men. They prompt man to commit evil, just as Mara does through his existence in all of us. His first daughter is Tanha. She is thirst.”

  Oscar nodded. Yes, that made sense. The first woman quenched Oscar’s thirst — he was desperate for water, a feeling that came on suddenly, and she let him drink. Yet he still felt more dehydrated afterwards.

  “The second daughter, Arati, is aversion and discontentment.”

  Arati, who had tried to make Oscar hate everything.

  He remembered what she had said. That he hated his friends. That he hated this world.

  That I hated April.

  Was that true? That he hated his friends? He knew he hadn’t treated them very well recently, but he didn’t think he hated them… and he certainly did not hate April. He loved April more than he loved anything.

  How had they manipulated him so well?

  “And the third and final daughter is Raga — she is attachment. She is desire. She is greed.”

  She had shown Oscar wealth. When that failed, she showed Oscar the only thing he was attached to: April.

  It made sense.

  He went to speak, then stopped himself.

  “You can ask your question; I imagine it’s the right one.”

  “Okay… How did they manipulate me so easily? How did they turn me against what I believe? I don’t understand.”

  “These women offer relief and temptation, and that is what you are after. They appear because they try to tempt you. They are hypnotic.”

  “They hypnotised me?”

  “In a way.”

  “How did they not hypnotise you?”

  Om smiled. “That is the right question.”

  Oscar waited for him to answer it.

  “Yet,” Om continued, “if you ask that question, you won’t find the answer.”

  “What?”

  “To be hypnotised, you require the perception that you can be hypnotised. Look around me. I have nothing. I want nothing. How could they offer me temptation when there is nothing to tempt me? You need to let go of your illusion of self, Oscar. You are no one.”

  “I am no one?”

  “Not in the way you say it, with that angry look on your face. You are no one in the most glorious sense of the phrase.”

  Om stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Rest, Oscar. It is late. They won’t attack again tonight. We will continue in the morning.”

  Om went to leave, then paused by the doorway, and turned back.

  “Oh, and by the way,” he said. “If Mara is sending his daughters to you, that is because he knows you are here. It is an aggressive act on his part. The war is getting tougher.”

  Om left, leaving Oscar on his own.

  As Om’s parting words grew clear, he realised that meant things were about to get much tougher for Thea and Henry back at home.

  16

  It was beans on toast for tea. Thea wished she could be more inventive, but she was hesitant to go out food shopping as it would mean leaving Henry on his own. Henry could do it, but then again, she didn’t particularly wish to be left alone either.

  So, beans on toast it was.

  Fortunately, she had found a tin of beans that had the little sausages in too. A small pleasure in a big, nasty world.

  She and Henry ate in silence.

  The ceiling continued to shake and pound and rattle until — until it didn’t.

  Until a silence descended, and they could momentarily think again. Like the eye of the storm, showing a little sunshine before the terror persisted.

  But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t a gap, nor was it rest — it was something more.

  Thea felt it.

  Something had changed. Shifted. Twisted somehow.

  The thing upstairs had not stopped because it lost power. Quite the opposite. It had stopped because it was gaining power, and would soon be able to do more than just make noise.

  Henry looked at her, almost optimistic. But her eyes were widening, drifting slowly upwards, and his optimism faded as her dread became clear.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She stood. Not deliberately; she had made no conscious decision to elevate herself upwards, but she did.

  “Thea, what is–”

  She raised a hand to silence him and waited.

  Listened.

  She was an exorcist and a conduit. A powerful Sensitive. Things changing didn’t get past her. She used to think it was noise in her brain, that it was meaningless madness — but she understood now that it wasn’t madness, it was the truth; the answers.

  “Something has changed,” she said, so quietly she wasn’t sure Henry had heard it.

  But he had. He rose to his feet too.

  “What?” he asked. “What’s changed?”

  She hesitated. They nee
ded to go up there. Both of them; she wasn’t going alone. But then what?

  She couldn’t just leave it.

  She had to go see for herself.

  But she dreaded doing so…

  She walked to the wall and reached up to a crucifix hanging on a nail. She took it down, held it in front of her, and willed herself to reconsider.

  She couldn’t. She had promised Oscar. She owed this to April.

  “Come on,” she said, and wandered out of the room.

  She edged to the first step, placing her foot on it and listening to its gentle creak. Her next foot moved to the next step, and she paused again.

  She was powerful. More so than any Sensitive. So why was she so afraid?

  She looked back at Henry.

  Because what’s up there is even more powerful than I am…

  Henry looked terrified, and she realised her fear was infecting him. She tried to present a calm face, a relaxed posture, a smile.

  She was unconvincing.

  She proceeded up the next few steps, and the next few again, until she found herself on the landing.

  The door to the room was marginally open.

  She had not done that.

  Oscar had said that it would soon be strong enough to break free of its restraints. She wondered how long it would be until it had the power to release itself.

  She took a deep breath. Edged forward, holding the crucifix out, feeling Henry’s awkward presence behind her.

  What if it was waiting for her behind the door? Ready to pounce as soon as she walked in? Was she about to die?

  She muttered a prayer under her breath, hoping it would provide her some kind of protection, however little it may offer against something so strong.

  “Father, I come to You today, bowing in my heart, asking for protection from sin.”

  She reached her hand out.

  “Set our minds on You.”

  She placed her palm on the door.

  “Help us by the power of Your Spirit.”

  She pushed the door, and it scraped open.

  “Let us be invincible to the evil one.”

  “Is that what they call me?” it said. “The evil one?”

  There it was. Still on the bed. Still in restraints. Still destroying April’s body and leering back at Thea.

  She looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed. There was more power, but it didn’t appear to have achieved much.