FicWad

Sometimes, when you’re in a rush, there are so many things that seem intent on slowing you down. Their actual goal is to stop you, but your own determination – I like to call it ‘blind refusal to face facts’ – will always keep you going. What sort of things do I mean?

Well, say it’s school or an office job, you have a project to get finished on a tight deadline. That’s the day when everyone calls you, when your laptop refuses to work, when the bus is late.

Or, you’re out and about in a busy city. You’re late, you have to get from A to B in double quick time. Suddenly, there are tourists and school parties everywhere! And they’re all going past you, and they’re holding hands.

You have no chance. Simply accept it and give up before your blood pressure kills you – because it will if you let it.

Nearby – and you should look around – there will be a short, stocky man in greasy leathers, with years of grime etched into every line on his weatherworn face. He’ll be leaning on a bike, and he’ll be laughing at you. He sent them. He sent all those pests to annoy you. He is Pestilence and he’s moved on since plague was the biggest killer.

*

I could see this guy, watching me from a distance. Even though I had no idea who he was, his expression told me that I was in trouble and I was more than prepared to take the warning. I knew I couldn’t really tell, it could have been coincidence, but the way he was dressed suggested that he was in some way connected to the scruffy man standing in front of me. Something deeper told me that they were all together and they had a problem with me.

“So,” I could feel myself getting nervous just from the way the three of them were staring at me. “You said Richard sent you?”
“I don’t believe we did,” the tall man replied, “I think that was your assumption.”

The thin man began to circle me, running his hands across my shoulders as he passed behind me. I tried to turn; I didn’t like that he was behind me. I felt threatened and now, yes, now I’d say scared. It was only now I noticed that the souls I had collected were gone.

“What happ… where…?”

The man behind me pushed my head forward again and I noticed the tall man had taken a step forward.

“I dealt with it.”
“Pretty, ain’t he?” the man behind me stroked my hair and I pulled away.

It felt like his hands were all over me, I’d no sooner pull away than he would be touching my arm, my hair or my face. And the oddest thing – I felt hungry.

“No one’s looking for you, D. You walked out and now they got him.”

The taller man scowled angrily at me, while the other kept talking. The more he talked the worse I felt, I didn’t even have the strength to pull away any more.

“Look at those eyes, D!” he pulled my head back and by now, I was completely unable to stop him. “Course, they’d look a lot better if they weren’t rolled back in their sockets.”
“Famine.”
“You hate the job anyway, you told me. The long hours, the lack of appreciation. But then there’s the babes, eh? You happy that he’s gonna get them all now? You gotta admit, D, he’s better looking than you.”
“Famine!”

I heard the roar of his voice ringing in my ears as he grabbed hold of my shirt and pulled me out of the thin man’s grip before throwing me to the ground. Behind me, I could hear scuffling and the sounds of a fight, a very one-sided fight at that. It was only then that it dawned on me what they had called each other. Famine and D. Had I been talking to Death? And the other guy, Famine! No wonder I was hungry! I pushed myself up onto my knees; I had to get away from them. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the guy I had spotted earlier running towards me and suddenly he was lost in the crowd. From out of nowhere, there were crowds all around me, people jostled and shoved, one even trod on my hand. I could barely stand, never mind get away.

“Death! Famine!” the third man yelled. “He’s trying to get away! Stop fighting, you fuckwits!”

And that’s when it happened, my only chance of escape. The book, which I was still clutching, vibrated. I couldn’t open it fast enough. I still wasn’t used to the feeling of spinning and falling every time the book transported me somewhere, but I was just pleased it was taking me somewhere. Anywhere so long as it was far away.

I landed heavily on my knees and sprawled forward, hitting the carpet with enough force to make me cry out in shock and what would have been pain, but was now just a shiver of cold running through me.

“Aww, son, are you okay?”

Pushing myself up onto my hands and knees, I looked up. Standing over me was an elderly lady wearing a nightdress and gown. Her silver hair shone in the moonlight flooding through the window and her glasses perched on the end of her nose made me think of Mikey when he was younger.

“My boy, you look like Death!”
I shook my head. “No, he’s taller and a lot more psychotic.”
“Well then, my dear, I know I’m dead, so” she smiled, motioning me to get up, “if you’re not Death, then who are you?”

She had a refreshingly irreverent attitude that I took an immediate liking to. Ignoring the nausea, I scrambled to my feet and ran my fingers through my mussed hair.

“I’m Gerard,” I replied. “I’m sort of Death’s stand-in’s stand-in.”
“Complicated!”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I mumbled.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it? You look like you could use a friend right about now.”

I stared at her for a few moments, uncertain what to say. She had just died and she knew it, but seemed mostly concerned with my well-being. She was some lady!

“Don’t you want to go to…?” I didn’t even know what to call it.
“The comfy chair in the sky?” she offered.

I laughed; I’d never heard anyone call it that before. And suddenly, I felt very much at ease, more so than I had since before the accident. I found myself telling her everything that had happened. How I wasn’t quite dead, that Richard had probably tricked me into believing I could return to my own body and that Death himself seemed to want to kill me, goaded on by the ravaged sack of bones he hung out with.

“It sounds to me like you need to find this Richard character,” she replied having listened to my bizarre tale.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “but I don’t know where to look. I don’t even know how to get you to… to the comfy chair in the sky.”
“Well, didn’t he say it was all in the book?”
“Well, yeah, but every time I look in it it’s empty except for a name.” I opened it again and read the name at the top of the page. “Marianne Angelotti?”
“Call me Mari, everyone else does. Did. Does. Now, the book, are you sure it’s empty?”

I nodded. I’d been over every page of that book three times already and hadn’t found a single word other than a name.

“Well, did you ask it?”
“Ask?” I was a little thrown by the question and beginning to worry that she might not be all there. “It’s a book.”
“It holds the names of everyone about to die, each name appears at the right time and it transports you to appear at that person’s side?”
“Yeah,” I replied, starting to worry that I might not be all there.
“It sounds a little more than a book to me, my dear. I would try asking it, if I were you.”

Yep, you guessed it, I felt like an idiot for not trying it earlier and an even bigger idiot for trying it now.

“Book?” I began, uncertainly. “Where can I find Richard?”

My eyes widened to the point I really thought they’d drop out as I saw the writing materialise on the page. The old fashioned script giving full and detailed instructions just as Mari had suggested it might. I just couldn’t believe it.

“I take it that it’s replied?” she asked in a sweet but somehow unsurprised tone.
“Yeah, it has, there’s a sort of a rhyme.”
“Read it out loud, dear, I’m sure it’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Turning my eyes to the page once more, I read aloud.

“From beyond where those have died, I call thee, Richard, by my side.”

I waited, nothing happened and I turned two very disappointed eyes towards Mari. She smiled comfortingly back and nodded reassuringly.

“Be patient, Gerard, it’s not always instant.”

No sooner had she spoken the words than a rush of wind inside the house almost knocked me off my feet. Staggering to regain my balance, I held onto one of the large straight-backed upholstered chairs. I couldn’t help but notice that Mari didn’t move, nor did she seem remotely concerned by the wind rushing through the room, blowing ornaments from the shelves. Even her nightdress and gown stayed exactly where they were. Was this because she was actually dead and I wasn’t? Something wasn’t right, that I knew.

And a second later, there he was standing in the middle of the room looking angry and frustrated. He stared directly at me and then at the lady to my left.

“Damn it, Mari! Did you show him how to use the book?”
“Of course I did! How could you leave this poor boy to cope with this job and with the Riders on his tail? He’s not even dead!”
“The Riders! What did you do? I told you not to upset Death!”
“Riders?” I asked. “You mean The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
“Five and they call themselves The Riders now, horses aren’t that practical any more,” Richard explained to my great confusion.
“Five?” I asked; my brow furrowed as I tried to take this in. “There are four. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; everyone knows that.”
“Everyone? You don’t know anything!”
“My dear, he’s right about that, there are five of them, there always has been. And, Richard, to answer your question, he did nothing to upset Death. If you ask me, this has Famine written all over it.”
“I met Death and Famine and I saw a third guy,” I added. “Dirty, greasy clothes. I tried to get another look when Death and Famine started to fight, but there were too many people around.”
“Suddenly too many people?” Richard sighed heavily.
“How did you know?”
“Pestilence,” Richard shook his head. “Ever since plague pretty much died out across most of the world, he set out to raise everyone’s blood pressure to dangerous levels by finding ways to continually stress, frustrate and anger people.”
“Does it work?”
“Heart attacks are one of the worlds biggest killers,” Richard looked at me as though I was stupid, which, to be fair, I was starting to feel. “Yeah, I’d say it was working, wouldn’t you?”
“Look, you have to find a way to get me back into my body before Death kills me!” It was a sentence that I honestly never thought I’d say.
“My dear,” Mari began kindly. “You don’t understand, even if you’re alive, they’ll still come after you.”
“Can I go now?” Richard asked in a weary voice.
“Don’t answer, Gerard. Richard you’re such a coward!”

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that Richard had got me into this mess and seemed so reluctant to help me get out of it. At odds with this, I had quickly realised that Mari had pulled me away from Death and the other Riders; it seemed she was risking a lot to help me.

“Richard and I will get you back to your body and we’ll help you deal with the Riders.”
“You can count me out of that!” Richard backed up shaking his head.
“You can’t leave, Richard, not unless Gerard dismisses you, you know that,” she smiled sweetly as she spoke.

Richard flopped down into a chair, and spoke with the tone of heavy resignation of one who had been trapped into doing something.

“What do you want me to do?”

I stared at him. This man had my life in his hands. I was in real trouble.