Don't Fear The Reaper (20 page)

Number 2 and Number 3 exchanged a brief glimpse. They both felt the
responsibility to rush forward and break the Reaper’s hold that was inducing
terrible agony on their friend. Yet neither of them had the nerve. The Reaper
was both inexplicably as tangible as themselves and as unreal as fictitious
yarn.

It stood right in front of them; mere yards from their touch if there was
any doubt, but its presence simply didn’t belong here.

Suddenly, without warning, the shaking ceased. Number 1 stood limp. The
only thing keeping him vertical was the Reaper’s massive hand. Then it flexed
synaptic. Number 1 resumed full control of his anatomy and took a step back
from the Reaper. He nodded an acknowledgement the other men couldn’t fathom.

Number 1 returned to the line the other men had formed, all solider-like.
The Reaper beckoned forward Number 2 and repeated the ritual. And finally,
staggering forward, flailing his arms to regain balance and composure, Number 3
permitted the creature to do to him as it’d done to the others.

In his own ears, Number 3 felt and heard the crunching and realigning of
bones, tendons and muscle. At last when it all fell in sync, the pain
dissipated and became a vague memory. His vision improved vastly, erasing the
fog, ash and dust. He could still feel it brush his face fleetingly, but that
was all. Now his vision gave him the sight of two powerful CCTV security
cameras zooming in and out of focus on any given target. If there was such a
thing as age in reverse this was what it would feel like if an elderly person
regained their myopic and long-sighted vision.

Across the street innumerable packs of cigarettes scattered across the
shop floor and spilled out onto the spider-web pavement. Marlboro, Regal,
Winstons. Cans of fizzy drinks. Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Pepsi Max, 7Up, Sprite,
Lucozade, Cherry Coke. This didn’t particularly mean a great deal. But the fact
that dense layers of dust concealed their names was impressive.

Also, his muscles promised to bulge right out of the skin, Incredible
Hulk style. If someone punched him in the chest at this instant their fist
would rebound and he’d laugh. He felt like a Greek God, constructed out of
granite.

Number 3, still awe-struck, moved back in line, grinning broadly.

The Reaper raised its head so Sacasa could see and be aware that it
wanted him to come forward again. Obediently, Sacasa followed his instructions
and stepped around the three. He faced the Reaper and methodically pivoted to
face the men he’d shared a chamber with in the sewers for the last few years.

A deep, inhuman guttural voice came out of his mouth as though he were
speaking from another dimension. ‘You three have been bestowed the gifts of
gods,’ he said in an otherworldly voice. ‘Your souls are my possession now,
entirely. It is for the sake of your souls that you shall perform the duty that
I ask of you.’ It paused, and then continued. ‘The task is to end the life of
the child that prevents total domination. It is this child that creates the
greatest peril for you and the one to grow and be known as the dark man. It is
the child that threatens to banish all death and to bring life here on Earth
and evermore. If the child grows to an age where he is no longer vulnerable
then the greater the peril shall be for you.’

The three men, who were more supernatural entities now, stood transfixed,
absorbed by the words spoken to them. 

‘You know the location of the child and its feeble protectors,’ Sacasa,
who spoke the words of the Reaper, went on. ‘You must seize this opportunity and
vulnerability of this situation and capitalise on it. Without eternal death and
damnation you cease to exist.

‘Why should millions perish on this land alone when others do not?’

The question was rhetorical.

‘The longer the child lives the more special his followers will believe
him to be. I assure you he is no more special than anyone else. They will raise
him on old-fashioned beliefs and idealism. These beliefs are at best misguided.
These beliefs were scoffed at when the world – in part – knew peace and love.
Pure delusion on the part of those living in denial, refusing to accept their
current situation.’

Sacasa’s mouth clamped shut. However, the men knew instinctively that the
Reaper hadn’t finished its monologue.

‘Have no mercy,’ the inhuman voice from another time and place continued.
‘God Himself showed no mercy to those who perished or to those now suffering,
including the protectors of this child. The world no longer needs
nonconformists. The world – this new world – needs discipline, obedience and
structure. It needs just one ruler. One ruler who they can go to. Not some
mythical presence they pray to, uncertain if their prayers have been listened
to and given approval.

‘Destroy the last of their hope and bring them to their knees. Do this
and you shall cross the bridge into blissful eternity. Without death there is
no fear. With no fear there is no Reaper…

‘The light has vanished. The darkness is forever…’

Sacasa’s mouth closed on his chapped, parched lips. His mind returned to
his physical self once more and managed to blink once before the Reaper took
one hefty precision perfect swing. The razor sharp curved blade whisked through
the air and separated the old man’s head from its neck in a blink of an eye.

The manoeuvre was so abrupt that no one had time to even register what
had transpired, never mind react. Instead the pallid, balding, psoriasis-infested
head toppled backwards and bounced off the rubble with a distinctive
thunk
.   

Glowing incandescently beneath the shrouded hood too many teeth grinded
into a maniacal sneer.

Even with their superpowers the three didn’t dare consider doing anything
to thwart the towering, massive dark figure. It could destroy them. Turn them
to cinders with the swipe of its hand or the glower of its fathomless eye
sockets.

The stump where Sacasa’s head had seconds ago firmly sat sprayed arterial
blood in geyser form. Crimson liquid splattered the road. The acrid, coppery
stench assailed their nostrils.

When the three followers looked up again the Reaper had vanished…

SAMMY AND
FRANK BENULLO
had been working frenziedly ever since the impact. The
clinics, hospitals and doctors’ surgeries had been emptied of medication for
patients. The elderly and young who were in need of constant medical attention
died. Under normal circumstances they would have struggled. Now with the oxygen
deprivation, lack of proper and adequate nourishment many had contracted
illnesses. Being in such close proximity the diseases had spread like wildfire.
The pitch black nights were sleepless, filled with the wheezing and coughing
and crying. 

Understandably, Sammy had feared for Elias’ wellbeing. She breast fed him
and made sure not to embrace him too much in case of suffocation. He slept in a
crib they’d brought with them. No one complained. The Benullo’s were considered
life savers to the masses hiding in the shelters. They had travelled to their
unknown destination in buses and Lorries. However, Frank had eaves-dropped a
general’s conversation with a member of his platoon. He’d mentioned South London. One thing was for certain – they weren’t in the centre of London. God only
knew what the devastation was like there.

At the mouth of the cavern fields had been scorched and turned to
charcoal. Pylons had fallen like drunken sentries tangled in serpentine cables.
The electric had long since departed in a shower of flashing sparks.

Elias was a toddler now, completely unaware of the new world. As far as
he was concerned this was the only world. These bulging ash-grey clouds and
desolation was his playground. He’d never known – or ever would for that matter
– the joys of ambling through a field and watching sheep eat grass and horses
run together. He’d never witness the fluxing seasons. Winter, spring, summer
and autumn. Stories of foxes and owls prowling in the night would forever be
stories and nothing more.

Frank felt both relieved and anxious to his son’s ignorance to his
surroundings. Of course it was good that the destruction of the planet hadn’t
scarred his soul, the way it does to someone when a loved one dies. That was
something Frank wanted to erase. He knew what that felt like. Friends from
school had died before their time. Liam had slipped and fallen down the stairs
and broken his neck. He died before the paramedics even made it. Another
friend, Craig died of a drug overdose. And two cats and two dogs had died that
he loved more than life itself. But this… This harsh new reality snapped his
heartstrings.

Today was the first day of August 2010. Both he and Sammy had done all they
could to help the survivors recuperate fully. He ought to be amazed and in awe
of all the famous people he’d attended to. But none of that red carpet bollocks
mattered anymore. The days of movie connoisseurs gathering around Leicester Square greeting the ones they looked up to at the premiere belonged in any books
that hadn’t burned or been washed away. It wasn’t important at all what was
going on with the Kardashians. No one cared if Ricky Gervais had some amusing
anecdote to the obliteration of what once was their home. It wasn’t important
in the slightest what celebrity was doing or who they were seen with falling
out of a nightclub.

No one, not even the lowest form of paparazzi, had the urge to photograph
the incredulous sights outside. World tragedies brought everything on the
planet into perspective. People who wouldn’t cross the road to piss on someone
if they happened to be on fire put their differences aside to make things
better. But this was a situation that hadn’t been foreseen until it was far too
late for anything to be done. Not that anything could be done. Instead the ones
who survived cried on each other’s shoulders. For pity. For remorse. For the
destruction and melancholy that had torn them apart.

Not Elias though.

What Frank found most disturbing was when he began packing his suitcases
along with Sammy. It was then, and only then, that he realised Elias was the
only baby or child to have survived in the nuclear shelter.

Four babies had been crushed by the stampede last Christmas. Men and
women who ordinarily solved their problems negotiating, debating and doing what
was best for the country had resorted to fighting over cooked meat and red
wine. Still fighting for the festivities of years passed.

Military personnel on several occasions had to gun down out-of-control
citizens. The killing was as brutal as it was necessary. The gunfire deafening
in the cavern. He recalled the jolt of his heart and the stillness thereafter. Then
the dragging of the corpses scraping across the floor.

He and Sammy had been so busy a qualified nurse tended to Elias’ needs.
They worked ten to fifteen hours without intermission nearly every day for the
first two years. All they had time for was food, drink and sleep. Frank had
lost so much weight his trousers required a belt, and even then they were baggy
on him. His waist shrunk and he could feel ribs protruding. He hadn’t been this
thin since a teenager.

The atmosphere was white, as though puffy, pillow clouds had descended
the skies. Somewhere amidst the white high up sunlight shone. But no familiar
sounds of vehicles starting or backfiring. No birdsong or any other dulcet
noises from environing wildlife. Instead stillness reigned supreme.

Frank loathed the stillness. Even when he was a young boy the incessant ticking
of the clock on the mantelpiece as he and his parents read in silence broke the
stillness. But this stillness had a presence. An ominous presence. A presence
of foreboding. The stillness was a nightmare for men like Frank. Frank was
considered to be a thinker. Or more aptly put, a philosopher.

The stillness allowed not one second of distraction. Instead it fuelled
his endless thoughts. And it wasn’t as if any of the thoughts or deliberation
was in the slightest bit positive. On the contrary. The negativity weighed down
on him, driving into his shoulders, pushing him into the earthen floor.

What did it all mean, anyway? What good was thinking? Everything outside
was the aftermath of a summer barbecue. Black smoke still coiled into the
atmosphere. He knew for a fact that the young, elderly and the asthmatics had
died of respiratory complications due to this alone. Others had died of shock,
lack of nourishment and poor living conditions.

The adverts that had once been displayed on the TV during the commercial
breaks showing pictures of children in the poorer parts of Africa were now
their reality. The only difference was even the flies and mosquitoes had
perished.   

Frank winced at the dull ache in the base of his spine. He must have
rolled off the mattress last night and slept in an awkward position. A grimy,
soiled mattress and woollen blanket was all he and Sammy had to share. When
their duties were done for the day they retired to the mattress and rested. The
opaque darkness shielded them from the tears spilled out of the eyes of the
dying.

Yet lately, even worse than the mundane lifestyle they’d become
accustomed to, were the vivid nightmares of a sinister nature.

It troubled Frank and created irritation. Judging himself without being
biased, he believed these dreams that caused him to sleep fitfully at the best
of times were unfair. It wasn’t enough that he woke to face matters both grim
and serious. Now his dreams were afflicted by some bogeyman donning a long
black cloak that covered him from head to toe. The curved and dangerously sharp
weapon he wielded was also menacing. And although it was merely a dream, this
creature had appeared without reason for the third time. The last being the
night previous.

During the night Frank had considered enquiring if Sammy had similar
dreams or knew of any such figure of this description. He decided in the night
– in the eerie stillness – to wait for day. But now that night surrendered to
day, Frank knew better to not mention such visions.

What good would it do him anyway?

Perhaps the dark, monstrous figure without a face is a symbol of the
dark times of the present and the future,
he thought.

Frank had to admit though, the vivid depiction seemed very real, even
now, wide awake.

The mass feeling of desolation was suffocating. He had to stand at the
mouth of the cavern and remind himself to breathe. What with everything else
going on, taking up his time, not to mention the lack of sleep, it was easy to
forget.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe
, he repeated to himself.   

And never had something so instinctive been so hard
.

It was at times like these that if it wasn’t for Sammy and little Elias,
Frank would have put himself out of his misery once and for all. It was times
like these that he understood why some people chose to end their suffering.
They were suffocating. Breathing was hard. So very hard for those with scarred
souls and broken hearts
.
      

The creature that he saw in his dreams never said a word. It never
revealed the visage beneath the hood. Yet it communicated by its presence
alone. In the third visionary dream the creature or whatever-the-hell-it-was
stood directly behind young Elias. Alarm had rung through Frank’s heart like
the school lunch bell.
Ding-a-ling-a-ling!
over and over again. But he
remained paralysed.

In the dream he wasn’t aware that it was a dream. He forced his arms and
legs to hurtle forwards and snatch Elias as far away from the entity as
possible. Instead nothing happened. His body was uncooperative. Disobedient.
And Elias and the hooded entity stood, unmoving, staring at him without
expression.

What Frank found most disturbing was that Elias seemed at total ease with
this supernatural stranger. By day, Elias was often timid around people. He
only really spoke fluently in either his or Sammy’s presence. After all, Elias
had the misfortune to witness stampedes, brawls and became well acquainted with
death from a young and impressionable age.

Perhaps – in the dream – that was why Elias was depicted as nonchalant.
If it happened for real though, Frank was certain Elias would be terrified.

‘What d’you want?’ he’d asked it in desperation.

No response was forthcoming.

He tried to coax Elias away from the entity towering above his son. But
Elias stared impassively at him. It was as though Frank was standing behind a
two-way mirror in a soundproof room. No way would Elias have ignored him. He
would have at least raised his little hand and waved.

‘Elias! Come over here!’ he’d called.

Elias blinked, but apart from that he could have been a statue.

‘Elias. It’s Daddy,’ Frank said. As young as his son was, Elias wasn’t
that stupid that he didn’t know who he was.

He reiterated for his son to come to him in a soft voice.

Elias shook his head. ‘No, Daddy,’ he said in an unwavering, grown-up
manner. ‘It is forbidden.’

‘Who says it’s forbidden, Elias?’ Frank asked, having a pretty good idea
who had put that notion into his son’s head.

‘The Grim Reaper.’

The matter-of-fact tone in his young son’s voice injected poison into
Frank’s bloodstream. Elias was the one who spoke the words, and yet it was
unfathomable that they could be his own. Yet when he said it he spoke the words
with an evocation full of meaning and emphasis.

The Grim Reaper? That was some sort of bogeyman. A symbolic figure
relating to death. That was all the limited knowledge Frank had of any such
name or title. What he couldn’t fathom was what the Grim Reaper had to do with
being unwilling to permit Elias from running to his embrace like he would if it
wasn’t a dream.

‘Well, don’t listen to the Grim Reaper, son,’ Frank said, keeping his
voice as even as he could. ‘Listen to your father instead. Okay?’

‘No.’

Frank could feel his heart miss a beat and his breath catch in his
throat. ‘You are my son, Elias. And I’m telling you to come over here. Your mum
and I need you.’

Elias stared at him, unblinking. His gaze was filled with wisdom way
beyond his physical years. They were the eyes of an old, wise man that has seen
much and has the knowledge and prudence of a wizard. ‘I am son of no one…’

The words echoed in the valley of Frank’s ears causing a tremor within.

‘You are my son…,’ he said, weak in speech and mind.

Elias shook his head once again. ‘Physical bearers and guardians, until
the time comes for me to rise and take control of this defeated ruin. For your
care, kindness and consideration in the following years you shall be given a
choice.’

‘A choice?’ Frank could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

‘Stand by me during the wrath and dark days and you shall be spared,’
Elias went on. ‘Accept fate for what it is, and be grateful for your life.’

‘What’re you talkin’ about?’

‘My destiny. The fate of the new world, burnt to cinders into a living
hell.’

Not through lack of endeavour Frank Benullo with all the qualifications
and certificates behind his name was at a loss for comprehension. ‘And if I
don’t stand by your side for this rampage on this living hell? What then, son?’

‘Then the Reaper shall end your mortal existence and keep your skull for
treasure.’

At the mention of its name the cloaked figure that had to be over seven
feet tall arched its head back and pulled back the hood. The face glowing
incandescently was that of a maniacal, grinning skull. Neither alive nor dead
it saw Frank and stared. The chasms of its eye sockets were fathomless yet
filled with something too horrifying to articulate. The chasms swallowed the
deafening cries of Dr Frank Benullo until he startled awake and smacked his
head on a glass bottle.

He hadn’t wanted to return to sleep even if his body cried out for it.
Fear was a factor that took complete control.

Now standing at the mouth of the cavern facing the devastation all around
the dream felt more and more real with each passing moment. Of course, the
image of the Reaper appearing in the flesh was ludicrous, he told himself. But
what irrevocable damage was being done to Elias’ mind? From the moment Elias
had been born the world he and Sammy and the rest of civilisation had known
ended. All he knew was of the crying of those dying and suffering.