Hunters: A Trilogy (16 page)

George, with a slight wave of his hand, brought Ken’s self-defensive rant to a premature halt. ‘We don’t require your apology, and nor was the show an accusatory one, either,’ he said. ‘No, what interests us is the fact you have remained a decent man, after all of that blood and all of those tears – the fear, the killing and the death. After all of those things, you have still managed to maintain a pure heart, you are still a truly good man, a brave and honest man, and that, Kenneth, is something we find to be utterly incredible!’ He smiled; it was a very endearing, somewhat fatherly look.

Ken had no idea what he should say, or do. He shrugged his shoulders and looked across at Mike; the wink he received in reply to his searching gaze did nothing at all to answer his unspoken question. Looking back across to the old man, Ken said, ‘Well, like I said, it was just my job and someone had to do it, I never thought of it as anything more than that – someone has to stop the lunatics of the world from running around and doing whatever it is they decide to do, someone has to do that, don’t they?’

‘Exactly what I was thinking, Kenneth, exactly!’

Ken realised where this was leading.

‘You...you want me to kill someone! That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what all this is all about, you people want me to go and…’

‘…kill someone?’ George nodded. There was no smile this time. ‘Yes, yes indeed we do,’ he said. ‘We want you to kill someone who needs to be killed!’

‘Why, how come you need me, why don’t you just do the job yourself? I mean,’ Ken retorted, looking around the magnificent room, ‘you seem to be able to do everything else around here without my help.’

George said, ‘We, as a race, and more especially as a family – my family – we are the Hunters. As you will learn, there are elements of the Darkness within all of us, creation has made it so. But, we have to guard ourselves against the nurturing of any evil within us, for if we do not, then we will become weak, if we allow ourselves to become killers directly, then we will have lost our…’ he paused, before saying: ‘…our innocence – we must not bloody our own hands!’

Ken sighed, a very cynical sound. ‘So, in other words, you get the likes of me to do your dirty work, isn’t that just a little bit hypocritical?’ he sneered. ‘I mean...killing is killing whether you do it or not, surely the contractor is as guilty as the assassin – innocence, what innocence?’

George was silent for a while, blue eyes flashing away in time with his racing thoughts. Then he said, ‘Yes, yes, it is. But there are no alternatives, we have to use any and all means at our disposal to hunt down those whom the Darkness has taken root within – if we are to sit and be judged later, then at least we will know that we did our very best. However, in the present we have to fight, and if that means using the services of people such as your good self to help us in the hunt, well...then we will do just that!’

George then went and made the understanding seem further away than ever for Ken, by saying: ‘If we kill, then we will be killed,’ he said. ‘We are the bringers of life, that is our primary role – but we also possess an extraordinary skill in finding the specks of evil, the Darkness, whilst on our travels. We destroy it wherever we can by whatever means we can – but, if we bloody our own hands then we are doomed and a similar fate will become us.’

He paused, watching Ken intently.

Then, George whispered: ‘And we have died, many, many times over we have died – so many times that I am unable to explain. It is another story for another time. You should also be aware that we do not simply round up a bunch of villains, vagabonds and ruffians to help us – no,’ George said, staring at Ken. ‘The task of finding people such as you is a very difficult thing to do. Yes, there are many other good people out there…’ he waved his arms around once more in a gesture of the all-encompassing ‘out there’. ‘…but, there are very few of them who also have the abilities that you possess; the vast majority of those who do are beyond redemption. The pureness of their souls is a distant memory. Kenneth, you are, as I have mentioned, one of the very few who seems able to resist the Darkness. You are the epitome of a Hunter…’

Ken just sat and shook his head, the picture of his friends, Geordie and the others, raining down in clumps of shattered flesh, filled his thoughts with anger and guilt. ‘Maybe the old man is right, I’ve always been pretty lucky, but...No, that’s just bullshit, Ken, and you damned well know it! This has nothing to do with any luck, I’m being used, I…’

George’s voice pulled him away from the edge.

‘You are able to encounter horrendous evil, carry out horrific deeds, and yet you remain untouched – your humour, your love and your loyalty remain steadfast, you are an extraordinary man, and you will make an even more extraordinary Hunter,’ he said, with a smile.

Ken half wished the old man would stop saying that stuff because it was making him feel rather uncomfortable, and besides which, he was rapidly learning that whenever the smile appeared, it was usually followed by George telling or showing him something horrible.

Still smiling, George said, ‘That gift, the one which you possess in such abundance, is precisely why you have come to our attention – it is precisely why you are here. You are the ideal Hunter.’

He smiled again, and it was a big fat, juicy smile.

Ken waited for the bad news.

The old man announced the bad news to his audience. But it wasn’t as bad as Ken had imagined it would be. Not at first it wasn’t. George wasn’t smiling now. ‘The people of this dimension are using too much oil,’ he said, ‘they are using it far too much and they are using it far too quickly – these things are not an infinite resource!’

‘Oh, right, well, that’s alright then…’ Ken thought, as his mind started to melt.

‘Oil, what the hell is he on about?’ He glanced back across at the old man. This was crazy. George looked at him in such a way that Ken wondered if he’d made the mistake of speaking his last thoughts.

With a narrowing of his eyes, the old man said, ‘The Hyenas, your leaders and power-brokers, are deliberately keeping this parallel on a path to destruction, they are going to bring this dimension to its knees in order to gain the ultimate power which they so crave – it will be the end of any chance that exists for you to advance to the next stage!’

Ken shrugged in confusion.

George clued him up, saying: ‘If you are on your knees, scratching around in the dust for a few grains of food, then the last thing you will be doing is striving to enhance your ability to advance, to grasp with both hands the wondrous opportunities that lie within reach.’ He laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound.

Ken’s ears were pinned back now.

George continued. ‘At this moment in time, they are telling you that the world is warming and that it is all the fault of your people, the ordinary folk. That is exactly what they are saying!’ he scoffed, then pausing to stare at the two men sitting before him. After a moment of silence, he carried on. ‘But, in reality it is nothing more than a cynical ploy to ensure they can grab more power and instigate more rules – they are going to destroy you with their insanity!’ George rose to his feet and walked around the room for a while.

After a short time he turned around and looked at the two men. He was angry and his red face had now become more like a small, blue-eyed beacon on top of the vibrating buoy of his lightly-framed body. He literally quivered in anger as he let the words spew from his mouth.

‘They know that fossil fuel will destroy them, they know it has already caused so much agony, they know it is responsible for the majority of endless invasions and horrific wars – the rushed civilisation of ancient races that should have been left to develop in their own time. It was all down to their insatiable greed. They pursued their own destruction, never once stopping to consider the carnage they had left trailing in their wake!’ He stopped to gather his thoughts.

Ken knew what George had meant – some of the places he had been were like a Stone Age nightmare, one that had only been made worse by the intervention of civilisation. Yeah, he had been there and seen it, and he knew exactly what the old guy meant.

George continued over Ken’s unspoken thoughts. ‘The pollution caused by the burning of such fuels is harmful, yes, but nowhere near as bad as they make it out to be. That is simply another plot to ensure they maintain control, they manipulate the knowledge of the planet to suit their needs!’ He shook his head in disgust.

‘Rotting trees and vegetation alone generate more pollutants to rise into the earth’s atmosphere than the burning of fossil fuel ever does! And that is before you factor in other things like volcanoes or the vast carbon release from your beautiful oceans! This planet has been doing these things for millions of years, and yet they will have you believe that the puny habits of man will have an effect upon the immense forces of nature in one or two of your little centuries – pah!’ He spat his derision out in a furious breath. George was fuming.

‘They knew these things and they kept them hidden!’ he snapped, angrily.

With a furious shake of the head, he said, ‘Anyway, what I am saying is that this whole situation is
not
about whether the dangers of those old fuels are real or not. After all, it never has really been about fuel, no. This is about them, the Hyenas, and their quest for ultimate control – the Darkness has them!’

With barely a breath in between his sentences, George continued with his rabid tale. ‘Why tell anyone the truth, why bother when they were able to use the twisted information to make more money and gain more power? We told them how to cure it – we showed them how to satisfy their need for power. They knew how, we told them how!’ He raged. ‘They knew that, and they knew many other facts as well, facts that may have led to their own undoing should they have become public knowledge. They hid a lot, yes – a whole lot was hidden by them indeed! If they were so concerned by the effects of fossil fuel, then why-oh-why did they not snatch our hands off when we showed them such a wondrous alternative, why?’ He stopped his rant and stood, looking at them in silence.

Seeing that George’s attention was back, Ken leaned forward, and said, ‘We know that they’re doing all of this, but what can we do, it’s probably a big scam and a lot of people say that, but what the hell can we do?’

George grimaced, saying: ‘You don’t need to do anything because we have already done all the hard work, all they needed to do was to build the machines, build them and distribute them, that is all they had to do!’

Mike and Ken looked at each other and then back to George, who, upon seeing the light of madness...nearly missing the boat madness...gleaming in their eyes, replied. ‘I do understand, my boys,’ the old man said. ‘I truly do understand how difficult this must be for you, but as I have said before, this is happening, it is real and it won’t go away. We have to address it, and above all, we have to take action! This is the hard part, believe you me. Making all the pieces of the puzzle fit, that is the skill involved here. Once you have attained a solid level of understanding, then the rest of this will be rather easy!’

‘Yeah, ‘easy’ being another relative word, eh George, old boy?’ Ken kept his dark thoughts to himself for the time being. He looked at Mike and clenched his cheek muscles. Mike nodded, almost imperceptibly, in affirmation of his friend’s unspoken words.

Seeing the confused shaking of his newest recruits’ heads, their tutor rose to his feet, and looked at Ken with a glint of sympathy shining in his eyes. George’s next sentence was more of an order than a question. It was also in complete contrast to his recent, furious, tirade.

‘Anyway, look…’ he said, softly. ‘Please do not worry too much at the moment; everything will become a lot clearer in the very near future, there is much more to this tale than just the rapidly diminishing stocks of oil, of that you can rest assured!’ Then he said, ‘Well, I think we have just about covered enough for one day. You must both be hungry, and I would imagine that you also have rather a lot to catch up on…’ Turning towards the door, he hesitated and then turned back to face the two men. ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked.

The friends looked at each other.

Mike answered for both of them. ‘What are the chances of us getting a couple of cold beers?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows in a gesture of persuasion.

The old man said, ‘On their way as we speak, my boys! I think that your stomach will be up to the task now, Michael – how is it feeling, by the way?’

Mike patted his solid stomach with his right hand and laughed. ‘Good as gold, mate, it’s as good as gold! To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a cold one just to see if there any leaks left, you know?’ He winked wickedly and it was George who had to shake his head in disbelief this time.

The old man then repeated his assertion that food and refreshments were on the way. After seeing their nodded agreement, he smiled enchantingly, saying: ‘Have a good evening, gentlemen! We shall meet again tomorrow, I still have rather a lot to explain in order for you to understand the next phase. Enjoy yourselves, but do not try and figure out all the angles on this one, some things are beyond comprehension. Simply let them be and go with the flow, eh?’ With that, he turned on his heel, strode across the room and went out through the doorway.

It was a piece of advice that Ken intended to heed, because right about then, he felt as though his head had been in a microwave oven for about thirty seconds, on high. ‘Ping!’ His brain felt cooked.

The two men stayed in the lounge for a few more hours, during which time they talked endlessly about their situation; a never-ending stream of questions and answers flowed between the two good friends whilst they ate and drank. It felt just fine to Ken, and was, as Mike had said: ‘Time to fill in a few of the gaps…’

When Ken had asked him what he was able to remember, Mike said that on the morning of the storm he’d tried to ring Ken several times, but was unable to get a signal on his mobile phone. So, after several more attempts he’d decided to go around to the bunker and join Ken there.