Don't Fear The Reaper (16 page)

The brawny young man staggered. As he righted himself, he saw the Reaper
reaching out with its X-ray hand and point to a sty and a muddy path. The path
meandered around the sheer crag out of sight.

This time Vince didn’t require any verbal responses to know what the
Reaper demanded of him. Yet he didn’t know what was worse – returning to the
carriage with the entity that was the embodiment of Death or the unknown hidden
around the crag in the midst of a cold winter night?

Only one way to find out
, he told himself.   

Aware that refusal would mean certain death or far worse, Vince clambered
over the sty, taking extra precaution due to the lack of light and proceeded
along the narrow, slippery path.

The wind buffeted him. In panic, Vince clung to the slippery,
moss-covered crag. He prudently opted to wait until the wind ebbed before
moving onwards. Eventually his eyes adjusted to the night and gave him a
slither of confidence. He almost tripped on a jutting root, but managed to see
it to adjust his feet in time. The road where the carriage awaited his return
disappeared behind the rock wall.

Vince’s fingers were ice-cold and numb. The rock face felt solid beneath
his fingertips, yet were absent of all texture. Taking one vigilant step at a
time Vince finally rounded the corner and arrived at an arched opening.

Before him was an awe-inspiring view. The amphitheatre was spectacular,
save the litter strewn across the vast round area. To Vince it looked like a
miniature coliseum. The stone constructed risers loomed so high up Vince had to
tilt his head right back. A circle of space topped off by the top row revealed
the jewel-like stars in the night sky.

His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of the Reaper perched on the
top row, watching him intently.

‘Now what?’ Vince called out over the shrieking wind.

As usual the Reaper did not respond.

Vince finally looked away and recoiled at the dark, crouched shape. The
night had camouflaged it from Vince’s immediate view. Otherwise he would have
spotted it upon arrival. Instead the crouched silhouette rose from its haunches
and materialised into a shape of a man. However, since meeting the Reaper’s acquaintance
the night before, Vince chose not to go by assumption and probability alone anymore. 

He waited… and watched.

The figure – for that’s all it was at this point – turned in a fluid
motion and faced Vince.

When Vince squinted and raised his right arm to shield the dazzling,
green light, the figure took two steps forward. Vince blinked through the
radiance, trying to determine the source of the peculiar light. He couldn’t
tell for certain if he’d been asked to describe what he was seeing. But as the
light diminished, as though the eyes they’d shone out of sucked it back in,
Vince understood unequivocally that the dishevelled man was the source of the
luminescence.

The green light shone dimly. It reminded Vince of a car passing by on a
stretch of country road in the middle of the night. When the oncoming car going
in the opposite direction noticed another car approaching both cars flicked the
full-beam off. That’s the only way he could comprehend the dimmer light of the
same origin as the dazzling shine.

What unnerved and intrigued Vince simultaneously was how the irises and
pupils of the man’s eyes had undeniably been replaced by this phosphorescence.

Surprisingly, he found he wasn’t at all afraid of the emaciated figure.
On the contrary, his curiosity plagued him to discover the truth, however
uncanny. This was why he took one tentative step at a time until he found
himself at the centre of the amphitheatre facing this abnormality four feet
away.

Vince gasped at what his eyes absorbed. It wasn’t just the man’s eyes (or
eyeholes to be precise) that were illuminated by this neon beam. The strange
green hue hadn’t only affected his eyes but his entire anatomy. He could see
the trajectory of its veins and capillaries were of the same tint.

An expletive issued from Vince before he could clap his hand over his
mouth.

The man who seemed incapable of speech or any kind of articulacy had been
inflicted with some sort of contamination. Possibly he was affected. However,
Vince deduced if the green shade that apparently coursed right the way through
this man’s system was a virus then he’d be dead by now. At the least, he
wouldn’t be able to stand of his own volition.

Food wrappers spun in eddies in the enclosed circle around them.

Vince watched as chocolate bar wrappers, crisp packets, bits of torn
cellophane and cardboard from snack foods swirled around them with nowhere to
go. It dawned on him how this man had survived in this isolation for so long.
His clothes were in tatters. His hair was tousled and damp; in need of combing
and a thorough wash. Yet what confused Vince was how he’d managed to obtain the
food and bottles of water and Pepsi cans rolling about on the rough terrain.

Then it came to him.

The Grim Reaper!

His subconscious formed the words and gave him the admittance to speak.
‘Now what?’

The man before him pried his lips apart. A guttural voice that came not
from his tongue or any other part of his glowing body said, ‘Stay here. In two days’
time the world shall be torn asunder by the meteors. The world will be Hell’s
home and burn in inferno glory.  This place is sacred. No harm will burden you
where you stand right now. You will be a servant to the dark man and to the
Reaper during the aftermath. You have done well thus far. But much more is
expected of you. I am the entity that makes you shiver on a hot summer night. I
am the eternal darkness that blocks out the light. I am the “singing man” that
drowns out the mourners weeping. I am Death. Your worst nightmare, and then
some. I am the Grim Reaper and you will fear my wrath and do as is asked of
you.’

Vince’s face hardened with perplexity. The man before him wasn’t the
image of Death or to use another name, the Grim Reaper. He was an ordinary man
who’d arrived at this ancient amphitheatre.

As he arched his head back so it rested on his hunched shoulders, Vince
laid his stare on the unmoving monstrous figure above. Then the mystery to his
confusion was unveiled.

Seated alongside the Reaper in the rickety old carriage, Vince had asked
several questions until he relented. The Reaper, as he assumed, had no means of
communicating through its own form. An entity from another dimension
communicated by other means. By using the voice box and muscles to form and
articulate the words it sought to explain its master plan to him, the Reaper
chose this inflicted man – a neon zombie that would be a perfect extra in a
Steven Spielberg Sci-Fi thriller.

‘Why did you drop the head of a man I killed into my lap? Were you trying
to scare me?’

The emaciated man staggered, then stood erect. ‘The man whose head I
decapitated was a bishop. You pleased me by blowing his brains out. His wife is
of no importance. But I do wish you’d have killed her also.’

Vince didn’t seem satisfied with the answer.

As though reading his mind, the man added, ‘I was not trying to scare
you. I offered you a trophy for a job well done.’

He didn’t agree with having a severed head tossed onto his lap, but at
least now it made some warped kind of sense. ‘Why have you chosen me?’

‘You are a lost soul. The Light has not been bestowed to you as it has
others. You may not have been born into the Dark, but you adopted it all the
same.’ The inhuman voice sounded as though it travelled through galaxies so
Vince could hear every word in lucid detail. ‘There are others like you, also.
They have powers that are beyond this world that you shall soon acquire. For
every anarchist there is a peaceable man. They who want to live forever and
believe the light will grant them their wish. They who believe in a high power.
They must be shown that their beliefs are foolish. Fallacious. They need to
live in fear. They must fear the Reaper!’

Vince’s fingertips prickled with electric static. He didn’t know what to
make of the oration. For one, he wasn’t sure he understood. He had no idea who
the others were. Where they were. Or how many of them there were. He wasn’t
sure he wanted to know either.

‘Their hope must be extinguished,’ the “green man” went on.

Vince wasn’t exactly the Brain of Britain or even his neighbourhood for
that matter. Nevertheless, he knew that people’s most inner beliefs were nigh
on impossible to break. If someone believed in their heart and soul profoundly
there was nothing no one could do to deter them. Even Vince Lawton –
drug-induced doorman – knew that was the strongest of all human emotions.

‘How’d you manage to do that, then?’

‘Their hope lies on the shoulders of one baby. The baby will survive the
aftermath. That has already been decided. It is the boy’s fate to endure. But
it is not decided that the boy’s life thereafter shall be protected by the gods
of destiny. I choose you and my other servants to go to the boy’s location and
wipe out his human sentinels and of course him. The longer the boy lives the
more their hope blossoms. He is the derivation of their hope that fuels their
beliefs. Kill the boy and the light will relinquish to perpetual darkness.’

The wind buffeted and wailed, as if in protest to this declamation.

Vince swallowed with difficulty.

‘I won’t survive the meteors out here in the open. Neither will this poor
wraith of a man.’ He was attempting to stall the entity’s voice. Barricade
himself in from the Reaper’s demands. Also, what he stated was in fact true.

‘There is a cavern on the other side of the boulder. Take refuge there
until the fires have ceased raging across the land. Wait for the cities
worldwide to have crumbled and for the oceans to recede. Then I will come for
you…’ The word
you
echoed, bouncing off the stone risers, mocking Vince.

When he returned his gaze to the stickman in front of him the light from
its eyes had vanished.

He became paralysed in every sense. His heart became a pitchfork and
stabbed his chest with every thunderous beat.

The luminescent green had been swallowed into a chasm where the man’s
eyes had once been. The two black holes stared back at him. The absence of
light sent bolts of electricity through him.

Vince felt himself convulsing madly.

What was worse, he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

As his mouth threatened to tear itself through his face the wind
swallowed his scream with its own…

*

Natalie
and Sue hadn’t spoken since their hasty phone conversation. There was no bad
ambience that had come between the two. There just wasn’t anything to say.
Instead they busied themselves hauling their goods down the dilapidated stone
steps into the bunker.

Sue opened her bottle of lemon and lime flavoured water and gulped down
half the contents. She offered Natalie the bottle. Without muttering an
obligatory “thank you”, Natalie snatched the bottle out of her best friend’s
hand and finished the water.

Finally, Sue ended the unnerving silence. ‘When’s the reverend coming?’

Natalie sat on the stone pillar facing the small town below. ‘He sent me
a text, saying he’s pulled in at a rest stop for something to eat. The baby’s
crying. He’s gonna give it some milk and wait till he settles down again.’

Sue nodded to herself.

‘Is that his cottage over there?’ she asked, pointing to the grey-stone
one-storey house.

Natalie nodded. ‘Yeah. John employed Anthony and convinced the diocese to
permit his vicarage. John had no money. No life savings. No future. John was
like a surrogate father to him. Gave him a chance when the rest of the world
turned its back on him. Anthony was an uneducated orphan with less promise than
that of a liar… I hope he’s not too long.’

Neither of them said it, but as the minutes evolved into hours the more
chance there was that Rev Perkins, as he was known to the parish, would run
into foul play.

Neither Sue nor Natalie believed they’d be able to go on if they lost
another close friend.

NUMBER 1
kept
a safe distance from the reverend’s Jaguar. He’d followed Perkins since the
hospital. Number 1 waited anxiously, wondering why the clergyman was taking so
long. Then Perkins emerged from the Hospital’s maternity ward entrance with a
young, attractive woman and a man donning a tunic, specs and long, ash-grey
hair.

Number 1 hadn’t anticipated Perkins would have company. The presence of
the young woman and the doctor disgruntled him, slightly. For a moment as the
woman carried the newborn to her page 3 bosom his heart jolted. Only when she
saw her clearly did he breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn’t Nadine Moretz.

According to the vision, Nadine had died in unthinkable agony during
labour. He slid down in his driver’s seat of the black, unmarked sedan. He
watched behind tinted windows as Perkins turned and crossed the forecourt to
the baby store. Perkins gripped the rubbish barrel and hoisted it up onto his
shoulder. Number 1 cussed under his breath. Then as Perkins started jogging
towards the shop window and swung the barrel, Number 1 understood the logic of
this move.

The din of shattering glass exploded into jagged fragments on the bricked
pavement. Number 1 sat bolt upright, amazed at this act of vandalism by the
reverend. The young, lean reverend disappeared into the shop through the
toothed aperture. When he appeared again, he’d filled a cot with light blue
clothing suitable for a baby boy.

The young, freckle-faced woman aided in dressing the baby into clean
clothing while the doctor wheeled two oxygen tanks fitted with masks across the
car park to the section reserved for staff. He took out a set of keys and
pressed a button. The lights of a Jaguar blinked. Then the man opened the boot
and carefully stashed the equipment inside.

With the baby now dressed in a one-piece light-blue woolly outfit, the
young woman and the reverend made their way to the doctor. Together, working in
unison, they lowered the baby into the cot and fastened him on the passenger
seat. The doctor handed Perkins the keys to what must have been his car. Perkins
gave him a grave smile. Then they embraced. The reverend took the young woman,
that had to be a nurse or relative of the doctor’s, into his arms. After the
farewells, the reverend got in behind the wheel and started the motor.

Number 1 sat in his sedan parked on the other side of the car park.
However, he wasn’t that far away that if he brought his motor to life no one in
the vicinity would notice. This was why his task had taken a turn for the
worse. The doctor and the young woman obviously weren’t going with the
reverend. They either had their own destination or were staying behind at the
hospital. Either way they weren’t leaving immediately or going back inside.
This meant that Number 1 had to wait for them to disappear before he could
pursue the Jaguar.

He punched the seat, baring his teeth. The Jaguar started reversing out
of the space and then gently pulled away. The reverend tooted the horn twice in
quick succession. The doctor and the young woman raised their hands in a
goodbye gesture. Then like keen watchers kept their unflinching gaze on the Jag
growing smaller and smaller as it exited the car park and rejoined the main
road.

To add to Number 1’s dilemma they stood motionless talking quietly. Then,
finally, the doctor put his arm around the young woman and escorted her back
through the automatic doors into the lobby.

Out of patience, Number 1 started the motor and drove out of the hospital
car park onto the main road. He snapped his head left and right until he saw
the Jag rolling through the entrance of a lot full of bargain retail stores.

Instead of going in and giving the identity of the sedan away, Number 1
drove up onto a kerb on the other side of the road. He applied the handbrake
but left the motor running.

Fifteen minutes later, maybe less, the Jaguar got back onto the main
road.

Number 1 assumed Perkins had stopped to stock up on supplies.

Traffic was light and sporadic on the motorway. There was nowhere to go
in the U.K. to avoid what was coming. Those who enjoyed the affluent, work-free
lifestyles that the working class dreamed of had the resources to construct
nuclear bomb shelters or go abroad (not that that would make any difference).
Yet the majority of citizens were left to face the worst. They were the ones
who hadn’t been selected to be taken to unknown locations where their safety
and survival mattered.

Caverns, mineshafts and mountain peaks were the most suitable of
locations for the fortunate minority. The average folk were left to see where
exactly the asteroids struck. There was also the possibility that the asteroids
might break up into smaller pieces prior to breaking through the Earth’s
atmosphere. But all in all, their fate was out of their hands.

Some citizens driving on the motorway believed they knew of places that
were deemed safe and secure. Others drove aimlessly, hope and panic keeping
their right foot on the accelerator.

Number 1 ignored them all. None of them mattered. They were already dead.
Nearly all the world’s population would soon be the same. Unless one was
wearing three million worth of sun-block then they were going to have a real
bad day come tomorrow or the day after.

What Number 1 focused on, without distraction, was the Jaguar ahead.
Night had fallen as seductively as a midnight lover. The sedan’s headlights
were enough to light up the inexorable road ahead and the rear end of his
target.

At Junction 44 of the M4 the Jaguar’s turn signal blinked.

Number 1, who was starting to feel the effects of the drive and the long
waiting outside the hospital earlier, switched on again. Alerted and wide
awake, he flicked his turn signal and took his foot off the accelerator and
followed the Jag up the off-ramp into the sleepy village.

A corrugated aluminium garage advertised MOT service and a small lot of
second-hand cars and a 4x4 for sale. Number 1 slowed down to fall back out of the
Jag’s rear view mirror. A Texaco garage shone in red neon. The fuel station was
illuminated and the store’s lights were on but there was no cashier or employee
in sight.

The Jaguar got swallowed into the darkness, dimly lit by the sporadic
streetlights. Further down a UPS depot gave way to a kitchen showroom and
caravan and camper showroom and lot.

Then the darkness became heavy. The streetlights lining the main street
into and out of the village were out. The only lights now were that of a
convenience store rolling by, traffic lights and the beams of both moving cars.

The road took a drastic dip down a steep hill. Number 1 proceeded
pursuing slowly and with caution. He spotted an elderly retirement home and a
school playground.

The Jaguar’s turn signal blinked repeatedly again. The reverend and the
baby took the next left through the open entrance gates and up the steep
macadam path.

Keeping back, Number 1 saw the silhouette of a church and an early
twentieth-century two-storey vicarage. The headstones erected and tilted at
different angles stood like drunken sentries.

Number 1 smiled broadly. His hands tightened around the steering wheel as
the sedan sped past the church grounds.

‘Found your hideaway, Mr Perkins,’ he said to himself. ‘Very nice. Very
nice, indeed.’

Number 1’s smile couldn’t disguise the malevolence in his glassy eyes.
Crammed with satisfaction and content, Number 1 could return to his own safe
haven with Number 2 and Number 3 and old man Sacasa with good news.

Above all else, the Reaper would be pleased with his job well done.

*

Reverend
Perkins’ eyes filled with tears of overwhelming relief and joy at the sight of
the white transit van. He rolled the Jaguar over the macadam and came to a
gentle halt. Then he covered his face with both hands. To say he was emotional
was an understatement. The whole episode of being with his sister for the three
days, and being out shopping when she’d been rushed into hospital, was only now
sinking in.

Nadine was gone from this world that would soon become an inferno
fireball. The letter she’d written was folded in his trouser pocket. And his
nephew was curled up in a foetal ball inside the cot fast asleep. Perkins
envied Sapphire’s ability to sleep peacefully. A million miles away from this
forlorn night. This night that the world over ought to be celebrating, not
hiding and cowering, waiting to be eradicated once and for all.

The fact that Armageddon was fast approaching on the Lord’s birthday
itself came over as evil mockery.

*

The
hard sudden rapping on the driver’s window made him leap back and cry out in
fright. After much cussing and holding his chest, Perkins turned the key in the
ignition and hit the button to roll the window down.

‘Scared the life outta me!’

‘Sorry,’ Natalie Hayes said. ‘Are you all right?’

Perkins’ breathing settled to its normal rhythm before nodding. The
weariness that had settled into his overactive brain had lulled him into a daze.
Now that Natalie had inadvertently taken a couple of months of his life he was
wide awake. He followed Natalie’s teary gaze to the cot and the baby lying in
it on the passenger seat.

‘I’m so sorry about Nadine,’ Natalie said, resting her delicate hand on
his shoulder. ‘Is that her baby?’

Perkins said that it was. Then he asked, ‘Where’s John? I need to speak
to him. It’s pretty urgent.’

At that moment Perkins turned his head and saw the source of the footfalls
approaching and was a tad disappointed it was a woman he recognised but
couldn’t quite place.

Natalie lowered her head as though she’d suddenly taken fascination in
her feet. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this on top of everything you’ve
already been through…,’ she said, trailing off.

‘Then don’t,’ said the other woman, approximately in the same age group
as Natalie. ‘Let me. You go and get the baby before he freezes to death.’

To Perkins’ surprise Natalie became the obedient student and did exactly
as the other woman advised. Then he got a closer look at the woman as she bent
over and faced him through the open window.

‘What’s happened?’ Perkins demanded to know.

The woman waited until Natalie had unfastened the cot and carried the
baby, shielding him from the cold snap. ‘Fancy taking a stroll? There may not
be many occasions we’ll be able to enjoy that luxury.’

Perkins needed to stretch his legs. Also, the fresh, crisp air would do
him good. The confines of the Jaguar had become much smaller since he first got
in and left the hospital. He followed the woman down the path into the dark.
The foliage was a phalanx of unsettled snakes. The oaks and larches branches
looked like the skeletal arms of a monster the size of a dinosaur.

‘Name’s Sue Dyer,’ she said, without proffering her hand or even glancing
at him. ‘I thought you might’ve recognised me what with me being a member of
the parish. Guess I didn’t leave a lasting impression after all, huh?’

‘I did recognise you,’ Perkins said, his tone unintentionally defensive.
‘Just not who you were, that’s all.’

Sue waved a dismissive hand at him. ‘It’s not important, reverend. I
wouldn’t remember me either.’ She led the way across the path between the
numerous headstones and graves. ‘It must’ve taken an awful lotta courage to do
what you’ve just done. You should know that, if nothing else.’

Perkins shook his head, agitated. ‘Yeah, I don’t care about compliments.
Where’s John? What’s happened?’

‘Your friend –
my
friend – John, is dead.’

Because she said it matter-of-factly and with as little emotion as
possible, Perkins half-thought he might have misheard. ‘I…’

Sue nodded. ‘It doesn’t make sense, right? I still don’t believe it
myself, but Natalie was there when John died.’

Perkins stopped in his tracks and buried his head in his hands. ‘No, no,
no! This can’t be happening! This whole idea to survive here was John’s idea in
the first place. What d’you mean he’s dead?’

Sue carefully recited the tale Natalie had told her. Then she fell
silent, wishing she had something positive to add or to end on.

‘Why would anyone shoot him in the first place?’ Perkins said, eyes bouncing
around in their sockets, unable to focus. ‘John would’ve helped him. He
wouldn’t harm a fly. Why is all this crazy shit happening?’

Sue could see that Perkins was on the verge of exploding.

‘It’s just us now, I’m afraid,’ she said, choking. ‘We’re all that’s
left.’

Perkins lowered himself to a marble plinth and punched the unyielding
headstone, roaring. The pain in his hand caused immediate swelling due to the
velocity with which he’d struck the headstone. But none of that even entered
his thoughts then. The pain would come later, and even then it would be a very
minor concern.

‘We got lots of food, drink and other supplies into the bunker, though,’
Sue said, opening her hands up.

Perkins heard what she said, but couldn’t care less at that moment. All
he cared about was how John’s dream of him standing in a hospital holding a
baby with a doctor and a nurse looking on was as accurate as a movie buff recalling
a favourite scene. He’d needed to tell John that, and how he thought he might
have been followed back to the church. But how he’d been too scared to stop and
left the car behind pass.

Bishop John Hayes was dead.

The only thing closest to a father or an older brother that I read
about and saw on TV and in real life is gone.

That harrowing thought was the ice-pick continuously stabbing through his
throbbing brain. The fact that John Hayes had discovered this underground
bunker in the first place was a miracle. He’d given Perkins a glimmer of hope
during the darkest hours. The only thing keeping him from slashing his wrists
with the nearest surgical knife, apart from his nephew, was seeing John again
and having him there when he needed him more than ever.