Hunters: A Trilogy (121 page)

George didn’t laugh any further. Instead, and after giving them a few moments in which to compose themselves, he told them of how it was going to be. ‘You cannot see me because I am in a place that is too far away from you,’ he said. ‘So far away that I could not begin to explain, you are in a place where no-one in this world, or any other, would ever find you – you are completely hidden. The red couch is only a placebo, rather like your little lighter, Kenneth. It is just something to make you feel more comfortable, something to hold onto.’

Ken looked into the dark and nodded.

The old man continued, saying: ‘In further answer to your well-placed questions: you should do nothing, for there is nothing for you to do, not yet there isn’t, although, maybe later…’ He paused, as if to stop himself from running off at the mouth and saying something that perhaps he might regret later.

Getting back on track, he then said, ‘You have done everything you possibly could have done, and much, much more than you should have done. Jane, I totally and utterly concur with your sentiments. I myself have yet to address the demise of the others – it has been a long while since I have suffered the loss of so many members of my family in one battle.’ His words were a timely and very painful reminder to Ken and Jane.

Whilst they had been wallowing in self-pity, the couple had failed to realise that he, George, had lost so much. From his daughter, Maggie, downwards, all of them, the dead ones, were all members of his direct bloodline. All except Red, and he had been something else entirely. His axis had been one that George and his kind had been revolving around for so long that Red had rightly gained his place to sit amongst the others, amongst the Hunters.

Realising how much George had lost, and knowing that it was still the old man who had come across the eternal plains of time, come to lay their fears to rest, before having cried even a single tear in mourning for the massive losses that he personally had endured, was very humbling to the couple seated on the red leather couch.

Jane, who felt terribly guilty, sat upright and opened her mouth to speak.

George saw her actions. ‘Please do not apologise, Jane,’ he said, cutting her off before she had the chance to say anything. ‘My grief is at best detached, whilst yours is much more tangible. You shared a meal with your friends on the dawn of this very day, whereas I, on the other hand, have not eaten at the same table as those who have moved on, for many, many a year…’ He coughed.

Taking a deep breath, George said, ‘No, my priority is to care for you, I know that Tori told you so, but you must understand as to how valuable you are to us, extremely valuable! And to that end I am glad to tell you that under no circumstances will you be thrust back into the face of the Demon’s countless cousins, there is no possibility whatsoever of that occurring on my watch!’

With his tone lightening somewhat, George then asked them to do something for him. ‘Will you both please think of somewhere nice?’ he said. ‘Somewhere you would like to be – a place that, given the choice, you would happily spend the rest of your natural lives in…’ Then, obviously reading their minds, he quickly added: ‘I am afraid that the Tolder place is out of the question, the parallel in which the farm existed, and which all of you lived, loved and fought so hard in, the one where Michael Wyppen died, is no longer accessible to you. So, try and make it somewhere else, somewhere more realistic, will you?’

It was a no-brainer and in complete unison, husband and wife both said the same thing. When they’d told him where they would like to be, the place where they would both happily see out their days, George had agreed immediately, saying that he’d guessed as much.

And so, with a cheery: ‘I’ll be right back, do not move…’ followed by a little laugh as Ken had looked down at the piercing blackness, George left them sitting alone once more in the silence of their unknown surroundings.

As they waited for George to come back to them with his answer, sitting quietly and holding each other by the hand for a while, listening to the silence and letting their thoughts reassemble themselves into some form of logical order, Ken began feeling an immeasurable sense of weariness washing over him.

‘Well, I don’t know about you, my love,’ he murmured. ‘But I’m absolutely knackered…’ Hearing no reply, and knowing that Jane couldn’t be asleep because the grip she still had on his left hand was a tight one, he glanced at his wife. To his amazement, he saw that she was fast asleep. Swivelling his body around, so that he didn’t have to step onto the floor in front of the couch – what floor? – he manoeuvred his wife’s comatose body sideways, and then stretched her out at full length.

The seat was huge and Ken had soon adopted a similar position.

After getting himself comfortable, he closed his grit-filled eyes and tried to rest. Even though his head was brim-full with madness, Ken still managed to fall, almost immediately, into a deep and dreamless sleep.

***

It was the dulcet tones of George’s voice that fetched their dreamless, coma-like, sleep to an end. The first thing Ken heard was the old man saying: ‘Wakey, wakey, sleepy-heads!’ His tone was that of an amused grandparent, one who was gently rousing an exhausted grandchild from an impromptu nap they’d taken whilst in the middle of a meal.

Ken opened his eyes and stared into the blackness, it was still there and so was the red couch, everything was still there, even he and Jane. Ken felt her warm body stirring gently against the backs of his legs as she began to awaken.

Eventually, when they had gained enough awareness to allow them to sit up, Ken yawned and looked at his watch. ‘How long have we been asleep, what time is it?’ he whispered, blurred vision trying to focus on his wrist.

Then he realised his watch was missing. The memory of why it was missing, and where it must currently be, was a terribly painful one…He’d given the old Tag Heuer timepiece to Mikey; one night whilst stuck in the cave, when the young man’s cheap and battered Casio had finally given up the ghost, its battery long past the days of coping with such low temperatures, Ken had slipped the black Tag from his own wrist and fastened it to Mikey’s. The boy had glanced at the luminous face. ‘Cool! I’ll wake you at three o’clock, okay?’ he’d said, before turning and leaving the cave to do his stint on sentry...Ken stared at his bare wrist for a while, allowing his thoughts to get back on track and listening to George’s reply whilst he did so.

Their mentor laughed softly, saying: ‘Do you know what? I have absolutely no idea – there is no such thing as measurable time in this place. However, I was away for slightly longer than I would have wished, so I suppose you that may well have been sleeping for quite some time. Do you feel refreshed?’

When Ken told the old guy he felt completely shattered, and Jane had added a groan in confirmation of the fact that she, too, was just as exhausted, George had replied with: ‘Well, then you will be pleased to hear that you will soon be embarking upon what will be, I promise you, the longest and best sleep of your lives!’

His protégés sat up in anticipation. A long and uninterrupted sleep sounded just fine to Ken, he felt like he would be able to sleep for a year, and by taking one glance at Jane’s weary face, he knew he wasn’t alone.

George continued. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I am not going to bore you with the details of how we are going to do this, as firstly it is far too technical, and by that I mean – boring!’ He laughed. ‘And secondly, you will not remember any of what I say, indeed, it is highly unlikely that you will remember any of these episodes of your lives…’

Ken stared into the darkness for a while – the thought of having his memory wiped clean did not sit easy with him, not at all.

Obviously seeing the expression on Ken’s face, George said, ‘Your memory will not be wiped clean, Kenneth. For that is simply impossible, no matter what some magician may ever tell you! Memory loss is not a case of losing one’s memories, no, it is the loss of the ability to find those memories. Not erased, but merely hidden within the endless maze of your utterly amazing, human brains.’

Ken nodded, even though he didn’t fully understand, he still felt better.

George then proceeded to lay the final stone in the foundations of getting Ken to accept his plan. ‘However, in your case,’ he said, ‘you and your lovely wife, Jane, your memories will not be lost, because for you there will be no ‘loss’ of memory. Instead, I want you to think of it as having had them locked away. They will be put into a place where they will not form part of your consciousness, nor, for most of the time, your sub-consciousness…’

Jane asked, ‘What does ‘for most of the time’ mean, exactly?’

She turned to Ken, and after giving him a look that said a thousand words, turned to stare back into their fathomless surroundings.

Ken nodded in agreement, it was precisely what he had been about to ask.

George explained what he’d meant. He told them that the simple fact was there did remain a distinct possibility of those imprisoned memories making the odd bid for freedom. He said, ‘Oh, and please do not make the mistake of thinking that you may end-up having the odd fit of madness, or something similar. No, what I am referring to is the phenomenon that your kind have chosen to call Déjà Vu, the sudden and overwhelming feeling that one has been to a place or done a certain thing before...’ He paused, seeming to take time in choosing his words carefully. After a while, he said, ‘No, that particular feeling, the one of almost being able to tell the future, is nothing more than your locked away memories having a quick peek outside of their secret cell. Only those whose memories have been deliberately erased, will suffer from this occurrence, they…’

Abruptly, George stopped talking.

If Ken had been able to see then he was pretty damned sure he would have watched as George wiped some blood from his mouth, because, in Ken’s estimation, their story-teller had just bitten off the end of his tongue. Ken visualised the old man’s grimace, and just to test out his theory, decided to ask a question, the answer to which he hoped would get George to tell them the whole truth, just for once. Unfortunately for Ken, Jane’s brain seemed to be in a rather more agile state. As he opened his mouth to speak, Jane jumped in before him.

‘Only those who’ve had their memories deliberately erased,’ she said. ‘But, I get Déjà Vu all the time, George – all the time!’ Once more she turned to stare at her husband, only this time there was a more alarmed expression upon her face.

Ken agreed, nodding his head vehemently and staring straight into the place where he imagined George’s face to be.

George laughed, if somewhat weakly, and said, ‘Oh yes, lots of people have those little sensations, but they are not what I refer to. No, they are merely the remnants of some childhood memory, or perhaps the ghost of a particular film they have seen along the way, or even a book they may have read at some stage during their lives.’

Getting the feeling that he and Jane were being severely patronised, Ken opened his mouth to speak again – once more he was beaten to the punch, this time it was George who stepped in there first, and he changed the subject, as was usual.

With all the slipperiness of a verbal eel, he said, ‘Anyway, I have laid all of the plans needed to complete your wishes; everything is in place and, Kenneth, just before you ask – yes, there will be sufficient funds for you to quite happily continue with your life as you so choose.’ George laughed, and after a small moment of silence, said, ‘So, there we have it…that is about everything we have to discuss regarding this next and final stage in our wonderful relationship!’

After taking a deep breath, he carried on. ‘I know we could talk about the ‘how’s and the ‘why’s for quite some considerable time, but we should not dwell upon those things – let us just let bygones be bygones, shall we?’ Hearing no dissent, he finished by saying: ‘In no time at all this will be nothing more than history to you, all you have to do is live your life in happiness, worship your God and…’

Ken’s thoughts blotted out the rest of the words coming from the darkness. ‘There it was, right there and then! Yes, he’s gone and said it; he’s said the fucking ‘G’ word!’ It had bothered Ken for a long time.

Mainly because he’d lost all of his own faith many years ago, many times over, and, to put it quite frankly – since he’d met George, Ken had been far too busy just trying to survive, and survive without going stark raving mad. The one subject he’d never really dwelt upon with George…the weird and wonderful old man who kept so many secrets, who knew so many things, and who was quite obviously able to see right into people’s tiny little minds…was the subject of God. Surely a man who was as well-travelled as George, one who was as old as he was, and one who was so, so…well – just so Goddamned weird as he was! Surely he would have an answer to the as yet unanswered question regarding the big ‘G’ word. Surely he would!

Ken intended to find out, and no matter how wriggly George started to get, he wasn’t going to let him off the hook until he’d provided a satisfactory answer. As it turned out, he didn’t have to do any ‘eel’ fishing. Before Ken had even cast the question out into the blackness, old George simply came ashore of his own accord. His voice lanced out of the blackness, and there was a stern tone to it.

‘You want to know about God, do you? Ah yes, God! I have always tried to avoid the subject, especially when dealing with people from your parallel. I mean, have a look around and see what it is that ‘God’ is doing to your planet! And by using the ‘G’ word, Kenneth, I am referring to those of you who use his name in vain, and to the fantasies they have built up around his supposed wishes, fantasies that exist to do nothing other than further their own causes!’

The words came spitting out the dark.

‘They are nothing more than liars, cheats and thieves, they are the Hyenas and one day they will pay, one day they will!’ George said.

Ken sat in silence, mentally encouraging George to carry on.

The old man willingly obliged him. ‘The problem with your race,’ he snapped, ‘is that you are working on the assumption of you being the only ones, God’s only and finest creation! Earth – the One-And-Only place in the universe,’ he laughed and it wasn’t a mirthful sound. ‘Well, as you have seen for yourself many times over, that assumption is definitely, and please excuse my profanity here, Jane,’ he said. ‘Yes, in this case that assumption is definitely the mother of all fuck-ups! The Hyenas take this adolescent assumption and use it as a weapon, a weapon of mass control! They have always done this, and they always will do it, until one day when the truth will be revealed! One day when you will be free from their evil intentions, one day when you will travel the stars and see the true creations of any God that there may, or may not, happen to be!’