Shards (10 page)

In that moment, the inevitable
became clear to Darren: monsters beget monsters. The vampires that
terrorised Sydney would be vaporised, but in the instant Smythe
burned a hole in the sky, all hope for rebuilding Australia's
future would burn along with it.

* * *

Memoirs of A Teenage Antichrist

January 28

Crows gather at my window,
especially at night.

It's a full moon tonight.
Thirteen crows are there, staring in at me from the tree. One of
them scratches and pecks at the glass. The rest caw amongst
themselves. Sometimes, just sometimes, I think I know what they're
saying.

February 14

I've started having nightmares.
Not your usual naked-at-school dreams. These are so vivid, I can
practically hear the screams and smell the burning flesh when I
wake.

April 2

Aunt Lucia believes I'll be
ushering in the apocalypse in exactly 66 days. She told me so at
dinner this evening. At first I thought it was some belated April
Fool's gag, but no, she was deadly serious. She doesn't have a
sense of humour. However, she did have a whole bunch of mouldy old
scrolls and prophecies and mystical doo-dads to prove her
point.

Word for word, she said,
"ushering in the apocalypse". That's too much shit for a
sixteen-year-old to take. A thousand years of Hell on Earth for
Christ's sake! That's what she said. A thousand freakin' years.

April 3

I lied. I'm not sixteen. Not
yet, anyway. It'll be my birthday in soon. June 6. I've been told
all I'm getting is my birthright: fire and brimstone and the sum
total of human sin. Nothing special.

All I want is to get laid. Is
that too much to ask?

April 5

I call the crow at my window
Abigail. The name just fits, somehow. She visits every night now.
Her twelve brothers and sisters lurk in the tree, cawing at each
other.

Abigail sang me to sleep last
night. For the first time in a long time, the nightmare didn't
return.

April 6

Aunt Lucia caught me praying in
my bedroom tonight. She flogged me, the old witch, flogged me till
I bled and couldn't sit down properly. She was scowling while she
did it, but it looked like grinning to me, like she took pleasure
in it. Then she lectured me for an hour about my "place" in the
scheme of things. If there's gonna be a thousand years of Hell on
Earth, I've got a nice little lake of fire in mind with her name on
it.

April 9

I'm seeing things that aren't
there. Black things, shadows, wandering the halls at school, moving
between the crowds. Sometimes they pass through people, and when
they do, that person faints or dry-reaches.

I thought I saw these things
when I was younger, but it's happening all the time now. It doesn't
freak me out as much as it probably should.

I hear things, too, like
people's inner thoughts. Their 'soul murmurings' Abigail told me. I
hear other sounds, too, but the less said about them, the
better.

April 12

I still pray, usually in the
dead of night, when Lucia should be deep in her hag sleep. Abigail
watches over me, but I'm not sure about the other crows. If they
hear me, and they must because their ears are damn sharp, then
Lucia comes barging in to check up on me. Never in time to catch me
but often enough to keep me on my toes.

April 13

People bruise when I touch
them, skin on skin. Aunt Lucia and the nannies wear gloves and long
sleeves. I remind myself of this because Brendan Amery, the new kid
at school, grabbed me. He must have been trying to score points
with the popular crowd by beating up on the weird kid. The moment
he grabbed my arm, he recoiled as if he'd been bitten by a snake.
The bruise sprouted from right beneath his fingers and leached out
to the back of his hand.

He spat at me and said a few
things I won't repeat (but I've memorised for later use), which
made me do a stupid thing. I pushed him. By the face. He tumbled
backwards, holding his face and screaming. I won't ever forget his
puffy purple cheek bloating under his puffy purple fingers, and
especially the way his eye drooped because of it. And the
screaming. There's always the screaming.

I guess that's something extra
to add to the nightmares.

April 14

If I'm supposed to be this big
bad Antichrist guy, then why I can't I speak to God or the Devil?
God must be too aloof to chat. Too cool for school to chat to his
opposite number's brat.

"Dad" ... well, I never had a
Dad, but he's flying under the radar, too. I've never had a
father-figure (unless you count that sleazy old Brit who keeps
sniffing around Aunt Lucia). If Satan is evil incarnate, I guess
being a deadbeat Dad is something he has to do. It's part of his
nature, right?

Anyway, it's Good Friday today.
Nothing much good about it in my book---I've been sick all day.
Speaking of books, I wonder if people will write a bible about me?
It would be a pretty thin book!

April 16

Easter was a massive
disappointment. I had to steal my only Easter egg. School organised
a Sunday church service but I weaselled out of it. It's like
they're trying to overcompensate for something.

My palms bled, just a little
bit, at lunchtime. Lucia saw me wiping my hands on a napkin at
lunch and smiled that tight, smug smile of hers.

April 20

I read the Book of Revelations
tonight. I had to sneak the bible in from school and hide it from
Aunt Lucia. She stared at me like I'd been wicked when I came home,
but she didn't say anything.

Abigail sat
on the window sill and watched me read---and what a load of shit it
was! Revelations my arse! Dragons. Lakes of fire. False prophets.
Plagues. That stuff is so last millennia. If I have my way, my
apocalypse will be like all the horror movies come to life.
Zombies, vampires (scratch that, vampires are pussies and can't
hang in my apocalypse!), and that guy with the hockey mask from
Friday the 13
^th
.

I threw the stupid book into
the wastepaper basket in my room. It caught fire the moment it left
my hand. I scorched one of my pillows putting that damn fire out!
Despite the smoke, Lucia didn't charge in. She never even mentioned
it at dinner. I think all those robed loonies she calls friends are
distracting her.

April 29

God's still not answering me. I
stopped trying to talk to the other guy (my "Dad") a while ago.

May 3

I don't want to be the
Antichrist, not after what Lucia and her friends told me. Bunch of
robed freaks. I threw up and couldn't seem to stop. I think I fell
asleep on the bathroom floor but I woke on my bed. I don't remember
being carried. Abigail was there on my window as always. She sang
me back to sleep.

May 7

With all Lucia's talk of New
World Orders and smiting and punishing the do-gooders, I feel like
a pawn in someone else's chess game.

If I ever have a say in these
things, here's a note to self: robes are uncool. Seriously.

May 12

Christianity is shitting me.
They tried to spring it on us at school today, some lunchtime
prayer thing.

The visiting reverend started
praying, but I think he could tell I was annoyed. In fact, he
couldn't help but keep eyeing me off suspiciously. Beady little
eyes he had, like coals. He ran screaming from the room shortly
thereafter, clawing at those coal-like eyes. I think I saw smoke
between his fingers. Seems appropriate, doesn't it?

Abigail was there, looking in,
watching out for me.

We were all allowed to go home
early. God really is forgiving.

May 17

It's not just
the crows that hang around me like a bad smell. A pair of big black
dogs (Dobermans, I think) are keeping tabs on me. When I first
stumbled across them and they began growling, I thought they were
going tear my throat out. They charged at me and I just froze. The
world stood still. I mean
really
stood still, the drizzle shimmering in front of
my nose suspended in the air. But the dogs didn't attack me---they
ran past me and chased down a nearby guy in a robe. More goddamned
robed freaks! A dagger clattered to the ground when this guy
bolted.

I don't know how it turned out
for the dude who dropped the dagger, but the dogs padded back to me
with blood on their muzzles. They kind of looked content.

If I'm supposed to be this
Antichrist guy, I want some danger money. Or at least some fringe
benefits, you know, like getting laid. I think God's having a good
chuckle to himself/herself/itself.

May 18

God must be a woman a lot like
Aunt Lucia. A man couldn't have come up with such a convoluted
scheme to screw my life over. Well, not any man I've ever met. At
least I didn't see any robed freaks today. There were the dogs, of
course, and the crows, always the crows.

May 22

I don't know whether I'm
supposed to be AN Antichrist or THE Antichrist. Seems like a lot of
work for just one person.

May 24

There's so much sin in the
world. Wicked thoughts. Murderers. Rapists. Thieves. So much hate,
I can feel it welling up, soaking into me so much I have to put my
hands over my ears to shut the world out. People are seriously
screwed up.

My birthday is in a couple of
weeks. I just want to get laid.

May 26

I call the dogs Max and Rex.
They let me pat them now. Lucia even allows them to sleep outside
my door. I guess things aren't so bad.

May 27

Every time I walk past a piece
of glass, whether it's a mirror or window, it shatters. Always
inwards, too, like I'm some cosmic glass magnet. After the third or
fourth time this happened, I stopped to count the pieces while
waiting for an adult to come and tell me off.

666 shards exactly.
Coincidence? I think not!

I wonder if this shit happened
to Jesus?

May 28

I thought about killing myself
tonight. I cradled the pills for what seemed like hours. Abigail
was watching me the whole time, her yellow eyes boring through me.
And the dogs! They wouldn't stop growling the whole time! It made
it hard to focus any kind of resolve.

Does the world really need an
Antichrist? It's doing a fine enough job killing itself without
some supernatural power twisting the knife.

I couldn't do it---the pill
thing, I mean. Not with Abigail watching. Not with Max and Rex
carrying on. As I was taking the pills back to the bathroom, Lucia
caught me with them and gave me one hell of a thrashing. I think
she drew blood. I can look forward to another night lying on my
stomach and side. Bitch. Definitely a lake of fire for her. Or
something with maggots. Everyone hates maggots.

May 29

A girl was waiting in my room
when I came home from school today. Sexy-looking private school
type. Long dark hair. She said her name was Abigail and that she
was my half-sister. We talked all night and Aunt Lucia didn't barge
in on me once. Hooray for small mercies.

June 1

Abigail (the girl, not the
bird) visited again tonight. She was waiting for me after dinner,
perched on the window sill. The window was permanently open because
of the glass thing.

We talked for a bit, but then,
oh my god (should I say "oh my god"?), the things we did! Tonight
has been the best night of my life! She didn't even bruise when we
touched!

I don't care if she's a bird,
or my sister, or whatever. She's mine.

June 4

The way she moves is like
magic. The starlight shimmers in her hair. We walked the gardens
tonight and the crows circled above. I thought it was a bit creepy
at first, but it was kind of romantic.

If the world is going to Hell,
at least I'll have her here with me.

June 5 - 6.06pm

It's my birthday at midnight.
The end of days. The big A. I'm not a bad person. I don't want to
be. But the world is a sick place. It's in my blood like a disease.
It needs to be cleansed. I need to be cleansed. I feel like I'm
dying.

If I'm a deadbeat like my Dad,
remember it's in my nature.

I hope the world forgives me.
What will be left of it, anyway. It's all pre-destined, right? It
has to go down this way? I'm not a monster, but if I turn into one,
I'll always remember the few good things about life.

I hope people remember the good
things about me.

June 5 - 11.53pm

This will probably be my last
entry for a while. Abigail is waiting down stairs with Max and Rex.
Lucia's there too, with a whole bunch of those robed loonies.

Maybe I can use them to
practice on? The thought's only crossed my mind a million times
since all this shit was laid on me. Finally, I think there might be
some justice in the world!

If there's
work to be done, then I guess I'll have to step up to the plate,
right? I figure the first wave will be the horror movie monsters.
Freddy. Jason. Pinhead. The dude from
Chainsaw Massacre
---Leatherface?
They'll spread the message, good and proper. Then comes the
zombies, not those wack-job sprinting ones but the shambling kind.
Then there's the maggots. Maybe zombies with maggots for eyes?
Everyone hates maggots.

Midnight approaches. I can feel
it.

The crows are gathering.

* * *

Love in the Land of the Dead

I ate her brains out of love,
but there was more to it than that.

For months, it was just the two
of us, along with the zombie hordes. Apocalypse was a bastard like
that, a great gore-spattered lottery. When the city, then the
suburb, and then the mall survivors dwindled down to just Laura and
I, I felt like I'd won that lottery. Laura was a babe---sassy and a
bullseye with a shotgun.