Hooded Man (39 page)

BONUS STORY

Editor’s Note:
‘Servitor’ was published in issue 21 of
Death Ray
magazine. It introduces one of the more mysterious villains of
Broken Arrow
, who will have some impact on the events of both the next two books.

‘Servitor’ takes place shortly before
Broken Arrow
.

SERVITOR

H
IS RESURRECTION BEGAN
with a dream of fire.

With a world consumed by heat and flickering flames. And a figure, hazy and shimmering, walking through the blaze. Closer, closer, until he could almost see the outline, the fire turning its torso red. Until he could almost see the face...

He woke in a cold sweat, the sheets and pillow saturated. His wife’s face was hovering over him and the bedside lamp was on. Caroline’s eyes were wide, full of concern.

“Wha...?”

“Mike? Mike, are you all right?” she asked.

“Huh...?” He was still a little disoriented from the dream. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You scared me... You were having a nightmare,” Caroline informed him, as if he didn’t know. “You were screaming. I thought you might wake-”

As if on cue, crying came from the next room. Their eight month old little girl, Lauren, woken by his din.

“I’m... I’m sorry,” told her.

“It’s okay,” she replied, looking over her shoulder, “it was just a nightmare.” Then Caroline went to see to the baby, bringing Lauren back in with her, cradling the child and trying to rock her back to sleep.

Just a nightmare.

But the real nightmare was only beginning.

I
T WAS DIFFICULT
for him, looking back, to remember what exactly he’d done before. He’d
had
a job, that much he knew. But doing what? He was damned if he could remember... Damned. He would have laughed at that once.

It was also hard to remember what he looked like, looking in the mirror to shave, wiping the condensation from the reflective surface as Caroline raced up the stairs to tell him about the headlines on TV.

“According to the news it’s spreading, Mike. What are we going to do?”

Putting down his razor he’d told her not to panic. “Look at what happened with all those other hyped up diseases. They just fizzled out, didn’t they. This’ll do the same, you’ll see.”

Strangely, when the governments started issuing statements saying there was nothing to worry about, that’s when he stopped believing it himself. But only when people stopped turning up for work in his city (where
had
he worked? who had he...
served
?), did the truth – and severity – of the situation begin to dawn on him. No, that’s not strictly true. It was when he returned home, driving through practically deserted streets, to find Caroline stretched out on the sofa coughing into a tissue.

As he’d rushed to her side, that tissue had fallen from her hand – taking an age to drop to the floor, spinning over and over in slow motion – white, red, white red – then rolling across the floor.

“Christ, no,” he said as he went to her. Caroline’s pretty face was ashen. He shook her gently and she murmured something, but he didn’t catch it; probably because of the crying. The crying from upstairs he hadn’t really registered before because of Caroline, because of the shock. “Stay right there,” he told his wife, like she was really going anywhere.

By the time he was on the stairs, tiny wracking coughs were punctuating the cries. By the time he reached the top the stairs the crying had stopped abruptly; and he knew exactly what he would find when he opened the door to Lauren’s room...

So quick. It had come on them so quickly, no time to get them to a hospital – if there was even one still taking patients.

With tears in his eyes, he’d returned to Caroline and sat with her on the sofa, holding her as she coughed up more of the redness onto his shirt.

“Lauren...” Caroline managed.

“She’s sleeping, sweetheart,” he said, resting her head on his shoulder. “She’s sleeping right now.”

He knew what would happen next, had seen enough of the reports to figure it out. But at least they’d all go together.

He’d never been much of a religious man, but he’d prayed in those days leading up to finding Caroline and Lauren. Prayed they might be spared this sickness sweeping the country, sweeping the world. His prayers had gone unanswered, so he prayed instead that he would be taken just as quickly.

But those were ignored as well.

At night he dreamt of the fire, over and over. Even smelled the smoke.

No, that had been real... And when he woke up this time, and looked out of the window, he realised the buildings on his street were being set alight by hooded men in yellow suits wearing gas masks, holding flamethrowers.

The ones in charge.

Not only that, they were dragging out the people still alive, hiding in their houses from the terrors in the outside world. He heard a snatch of conversation, something about them having O-Neg blood. Was that it? Was that why he’d survived when his wife and child had-

These men, some of them armed with guns as well, were searching inside the homes, one by one, and he didn’t fancy finding out what would happen to the survivors. So, kissing the top of Caroline’s head, he hid too. Locked himself in the cupboard under the stairs, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t check the house that thoroughly. He was right; the clumping of boots only lasted for a few minutes, and then all was quiet again.

After a while the smell of smoke grew stronger, and so he came out again – to find the front door and hallway already alight. He had hoped to gather his lost family together and wait for the flames to consume them all, but now his way was blocked to both the stairs and the living room.

He tried to make his way through the rapidly spreading inferno, but the heat was just too much. Turning, he saw that the kitchen behind him was also ablaze; the men in yellow must have set fire to the back as well, taking no chances. That was good, he told himself. That meant there was no escape.

He sank to his knees, as the fire closed in. Closer, closer... He was coughing now, just like Caroline, just like Lauren.

Looking up, he thought he saw a shimmering shape through the flames. Then he felt the heat on his arms.

Then
came the explosion.

H
IS EYES FLICKERED
open.

It was pitch black. He remembered wondering if he was dead? If so, this was no Heaven. But nor was it Hell either – he’d just come from there, hadn’t he? Experimentally, he moved, and found his body ached all over. His arms were sore where they had been exposed the fire, his face was burnt when he touched it.

But he was still alive.

Or was he? He felt different, strange. Reborn... A phoenix from the ashes.

What had happened? Had the explosion thrown him clear of the house somehow? Or the figure? Had someone rescued him?

All too rational. No, there had to be another reason for all this.

He got up, staggering around disorientated, couldn’t tell where he was exactly – except for the fact he was outside, the wind brushing his cheeks.

He felt compelled to walk and so when the sun rose he was in unfamiliar territory. He walked for what seemed like days, passing bodies on the streets. Seeing the people who were left fighting, shooting and stabbing each other, gangs of men forcing women to do unspeakable things. None of it seemed real to him anymore. Finding a shop front, he tried to look at his face, but the reflection was broken, wrong, a spider’s web caused by the shattered glass.

As he passed by a pub and heard a TV on inside. How it was still working was anyone’s guess, but from inside came a rhetoric from someone preaching the word of God; from something called the Neo Clergy... There were a couple of people inside watching, one an old man, the other an overweight woman, their mouths gaping open. He stooped and picked up a brick, tossing it at the TV to silence it.

“Hey! What you do that for?” said the old man.

He didn’t answer, just walked away – carried on walking. (Dead man walking.)

To where, he had no clue.

T
HOSE DAYS DURING
what was called The Cull were as much of a blur as the figure in the flames.

He ate only when he absolutely had to, finding tins and other food stocks inside houses and stores, sleeping only when he couldn’t walk anymore. His body was taking him North, he knew that. Just not why.

In his time on the road, he heard rumours of all sorts. Nuclear explosions at Salisbury Plains, cannibals, people who thought they could get closer to the Almighty by draining the blood of innocents – not that there was such a thing any more.

It was as he was passing through yet another city at night, the last in a long line, there came a revelation. Set upon by a group of young punks, armed with all kinds of home-made weapons, from crowbars to saws – “Now what do we have here then, he? Prey, that’s what!” – he was saved by men just like him. Somehow he felt their presence before he even saw them – a connection that stood to this day – and he knew they could save his life... not that he had one to save.

The men in robes and hoods – not yellow this time, but maroon – leapt on the gang, swinging what looked like huge swords, the metal glinting in the light from the moon. Their blades bit into flesh, hacking at arms and legs, spraying blood everywhere, until the members of the gang were either all dead or had run away.

He could see there were only about a dozen of the robed figures now, standing in front of him, holding their machetes by their sides. They said nothing, but he knew they wouldn’t harm him. Then one held out his hand, helping him up.

“We have been waiting for you to arrive, brother,” he said.

“W-Who are you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“We are Servitor,” was the reply. “We serve.”

They took him to an abandoned building – which ones weren’t anymore? – and gave him food, gave him water. Then they held him while one of the men pulled down his hood to reveal a skeletal face beneath. A dead man, just like he was. A dead man who’d been warming a needle over an open flame, and who now jabbed that same needle into his forehead. Strangely, though, after the first few moments it didn’t hurt anymore. Just like the fire, just like...

But his memories were starting to go. His recollections about what had happened to him gradually fading,
had been
fading for some time on the road.

This had been his destination all along, his kin waiting for him. They too had turned their backs on the Lord, just as
He
had on them. They now served another. And they were awaiting his return.

Once the tattoo was done, and the wound sterilised, he was allowed a closer look at the first dead man’s face. The
painting
on his face, like those done to children at Halloween.

“You like it?” asked the man. “Good. Because you too shall receive one. It is our true face, brother.”

And the tattoo: he didn’t need to see it in a mirror, because this man’s face was his mirror. It was how he would look too, eventually. A dead face, a Skullface; inverted pentangle and cross already on his forehead.

“He has called you forth. Cleansed you in the fire,” the man continued, “in order to do his bidding.
His
power flows through you.”

It wasn’t long before he discovered exactly what that bidding was, when they took him on their first hunt. A young couple, couldn’t have been more than twenty either of them – probably travelling together for safety, thrown together by circumstances. The order had chased them down and killed the guy, though he’d put up quite a struggle. The girl had been left to him.

“They are already his,” the brother who had initiated him said. “Each drop of blood we spill makes
His
passage into this world easier. Their God has abandoned this place, it is time for
Him
to take his rightful throne.”

The girl, shaking and crying, was held by two of the robed men.