And now he was in their lair, helpless and vulnerable, subject to their whims. There was, it seemed, only one thing for him to do, one final defining act to show his defiance to the defiler that ruled the world. To show his faith, his true devotion. Eli uncovered his ears and opened his eyes, despite the bright pain from the light. Standing unsteadily on his feet, he propped himself up with his back against the wall. Praying silently to God and casting his hands behind his head, he placed his tongue out as far as it would go, holding it there firmly in-between his teeth. He paused, savouring the last moments life had to offer him. And then he let himself fall forwards, resisting the temptation to break his descent. The impact not only broke his jaw but also severed his tongue, cutting both lingual arteries. In a haze of pain and light and sound, his mouth quickly filled with blood, and as he lapsed steadily into unconsciousness, he inhaled his own life force and died before medical teams could be dispatched to save him.
4.30PM 14th September 2015, Hounslow, London
He was already well on the way to getting nicely drunk. And he was still angry, very angry. Owen sat on a less than clean sofa in the abandoned flat that he had acquired for himself. The council’s attempt to board it up had lasted less than ten minutes when faced with an onslaught of crowbars and the well-placed boots of his gang. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a gang. It was just him and four others who only really stayed around because it was beneficial to them. They were also afraid of him. Owen wasn’t big, but he was vicious, and didn’t seem to have any fear whatsoever. He was well known for his ability to lash out with unrestrained violence at any provocation.
At the moment, he was alone, which was probably for the best. Now was not the time for others to be around him. Yes, Owen was feared by those in his gang and by those his gang harassed. The people around him learnt quickly to make themselves scarce when he got into one of his moods, because those moods always ended in violence. Today was one of those times, and the two young men who had been with him in Clive’s fast food joint that morning had quickly made themselves scarce when they had seen Owen start drinking about lunchtime. They suddenly found they had errands to run.
Deep down, Owen knew what brought on the anger. It was his own self-loathing that spurred it on. Truth be told, he hated himself, hated what he had become, hated the world he had created around him. But he only knew one way to react to those feelings. So he bottled them up, denied their existence and did his best to wash them in a sea of alcohol whenever they dared make themselves known. Of course, the alcohol fuelled his anger, which made him self-destruct even more, which made him commit more acts which scarred and damaged his psyche even more. The bravado he displayed was merely an act, the act of a boy growing into a man who was not the sociopath he pretended to be. He was just a broken child who didn’t know how to fix himself. So he lashed out at the world that he blamed for the gnawing pit of despair that burned within his very soul. Unfortunately, the more he let his anger run wild, the more the fires of sociopathy grew within him.
His mother saw the truth of him, saw the pain and the anguish that he tried to hide. She had been there listening to him weep in the early hours. But she knew she couldn’t help him, knew she couldn’t fix the train wreck that his life was becoming. How could she? She hadn’t been able to salvage her own life. She had lost any chance when he first manifested these traits, when she first saw him commit an act of wanton violence. She should have gone to the police, turned witness against him, let the law of the land bring down its justice so that it could also bring down its mercy. But she hadn’t, not because she loved him, but because she too was broken and wanted nothing to do with the scum that wore the blue uniform. And with no father figure to enforce any kind of discipline, she did the worst thing any mother could do – she let him go down his own path with no guidance and no hindrance. And now her son was a killer. And she lived inside a bottle, a further example for her precious son to follow.
Owen had not meant to kill the man – at least that was what he said to himself. To those who followed him, however, he showed no self-doubt, had merely shrugged when the stupid bastard had smashed his skull on the pavement. Owen didn’t think he had even hit the guy that hard, but his anger had exploded when the black fool had fought back. It was a mugging for Christ sake. You didn’t fight back when you were outnumbered – everyone knew that. But the man had, and had landed some pretty decisive blows on two of his attackers before Owen’s fist had slammed into the side of his jaw. Owen had looked down at the semi-conscious, groaning figure and had looked around at the group with him. He winked at one, a smile forming on his lips. And then he had kicked the prone figure of Jack Nathan’s father in the head with his steel-capped boot. Inside a little voice was screaming, but the ego knew the show of force was demanded, was expected. A short piece about the victim’s subsequent death had appeared in one of the free newspapers, and on reading it, Owen’s blood had turned to ice, and a little bit more of his humanity had died. They always say the first kill is the hardest, that it becomes easier after that. Owen didn’t know who “they” were, but he figured they were probably right. And over the next few days, he would get to test that theory out in abundance.
5.34PM, 19th November 2014, Hayton Vale, Devon, UK
To those who routinely drank in the Rock Inn Pub, the lone man who arrived at the same time every day was a curious fellow. He was always polite, he always seemed to wear the same tailored suit, and always ordered the same meal. His hair and beard were always well groomed, although he never availed himself of the local hair salon. He never spoke more than he needed to, and he always washed down the food with the same two pints of beer. Attempts to engage him in conversation, to explain the mystery of the man, had always been politely rebuffed. Nobody even knew his name or why he had suddenly appeared and chosen to live here for nearly a year.
Word had also gotten around about the sale of the old farmhouse years prior, and of the building work that had gone on, mostly unseen due to the farmhouse only being reached by a long and winding private road that was now secured by security cameras and a formidable electronic gate. The twenty acres of land that the farm covered quickly became encircled by sturdy eight-foot Barbican fencing, topped with fresh and gleaming razor wire. Earlier attempts by the few neighbours to welcome the new owners to the locality had been unsuccessful, nobody answering the electronic gate intercom, and after the construction was complete, nobody was ever seen using the gate to enter or exit. Soon enough, people had given up trying. It was thought that the quiet man lived in what the locals now called “The Fortress”, although nobody really knew for sure. And due to the man’s thin frame, scarred face and meek demeanour, they labelled him as a harmless eccentric and left him to his own devices. Eventually, like everything else familiar, his presence amongst them faded into indifference.
In reality, he was a devout man with a genius IQ. Devout to science, not religion. If the drinkers in the Rock Inn Pub had been avid readers of the more obscure scientific journals, they might have recognised his face, but only if they had read those journals twenty years ago. A brilliant virologist, he had, at one time, had it all. A beautiful wife and three children who he had adored more than life. On the very cusp of becoming the head of Virology at Cambridge University, his life had been stripped from him one vicious evening. Driving carefully home from a day out – the wife in the passenger seat, the children playing kids’ games in the back – he had seen the Ford Escort two seconds before it ploughed through a red light, sending his car and his life into a burning hell.
The victim of a drunk driver who ironically had escaped virtually unscathed, Professor James Jones, one of the most brilliant minds the country had to offer, awoke to find his legs broken, a tube sticking out of his chest to deal with the collapsed lung, and the sight in his right eye gone due to the flames that had licked at his features. He also found his wife and two of his children dead. The third was in a coma and held on for another two days before nature took he
r to where all living things go eventually. The nurses and doctors had struggled to know how to break this further news to him, a man who no longer had any living relatives of note, and whose friends seemed noticeably absent, despite this being the time he needed them the most. The doctor who finally told him felt a little piece of her die when her words visibly destroyed what was left of the man who had already been on the brink.
That brilliant mind, a mind that was destined to cure disease and to help the lives of millions, simply snapped. Something inside it just broke, and after his initial uncontrolled despair, Jones descended into a catatonic state that medical science was unable to rouse him from. As his physical injuries healed, his mind closed down, and now unable to be released into the world he had retreated from, he was hospitalised and diagnosed with Schizophrenic Catatonia. His burns healed with little in the way of visible scarring, but the sight in the dead eye never returned, and he dwelled in an internal world of peace, oblivious to everything that made him human.
When the catatonia broke four years later, he returned to the world with a different perspective than the one he had held before the accident. When he turned his head and asked for water, frightening the life out of the care assistant who had been giving him a sponge bath, he felt something dwelling in the forefront of his mind that he had rarely experienced before:
Rage
It was there all the time; it was all he had. There wasn’t even any room for grief. The psychiatrists sympathised with him, said they understood the way he felt. He spat their words back in their faces. How could they know? How could they understand such loss? Not just the loss of his family, but the loss of his hope, the loss of his belief about the world, the loss of such perfection. The rage became all consuming, and it wasn’t helped with the knowledge that the man who had killed his family had served less than three years at her Majesty’s Pleasure. Three years? Where was the justice there? Jones railed against society, hurled venom and verbal abuse at those whose job it was to try and help him. He would not be consoled, and he would not forgive a world that allowed such pain and suffering to dwell at its very core. Even worse, he would not forgive the people who created it, who helped oil the wheels of its systems and governments. He quickly learnt to loathe humanity, because they had such potential, and yet they let themselves be corrupted by weakness and selfishness. In his weakened state, muscles atrophied, he was no real physical threat, not to those trained in how to deal with such cases. But his obvious hatred for the world and subsequent attempts at suicide saw him sectioned to a secure psychiatric facility.
That was time passed. Now he sat, passing the half-filled glass to his lips, listening to the inane chatter in the pub around him, his burns mostly healed, but having sight still in only one eye. Those around him would claim they were good people, that they deserved the life they held so dear. But how often did he see them consume four, maybe five pints before venturing outside to drive their chariots of death home? How often did their bigotry and their racism escape the confines of their hearts through the words they expressed, through their actions? He truly despised them all. Including the children that often ran laughing through the pub. As innocent as they were, they were slowly being filled with hatred and poison by the corrupted adults who surrounded them.
Even now, many years on, utter hatred filled his heart for the human race. But long ago he had learnt to contain his rage, to bottle it and channel it to where it needed to be, to show the psychiatrists what they wanted to see. It was the only way to escape their clutches. So he wore the mask of meek compliance and pretended to enjoy the simple pleasures that life offered whilst rejecting the blanket of comfort that society claimed to provide.
He was able to perform this masquerade because he believed he had been shown a truth about the world, and had learnt that he had an important place in it. In the psychiatric facility, he quickly learnt to tell the head shrinkers what they wanted to hear. He showed pain at his loss, and slowly “learnt” the lessons they tried to teach him, taking his medication as ordered, but discarding the pills whenever he could. When he was released, he gave the illusion of working with the medical professionals and the social workers, but deep in his heart, his hostility to the human race grew, dark thoughts beginning to fester in his mind in those dark moments before sleep. The thoughts became plans, and the plans searched for a way to manifest themselves.
Money was of little concern to him. His parents had been rich when they had died, and a large trust fund was there for his every whim. He did not, therefore, seek employment, but embraced a new technology that was revolutionising the world … the internet. And through this he found the writings of a controversial American professor whose latest book The Plague of Man was causing quite a stir in the scientific community. Jones realised that the author was a glorified Eugenicist, but the basic premise that man was a cancer that needed eradicating to save the Earth took root in his already diseased mind.
When the author came to speak in London, Jones attended. Sat in the audience, he grew tired of the author’s talk, which was more of an elitist rant than a true understanding of the virus that humankind represented. Halfway through the lecture, Jones put his hand up. At first, he was ignored, but he persisted. Then he stood up, causing a murmur around him.
“A question from the audience?” the author said. “I don’t normally answer questions.”
“Is that because you are afraid what you might get asked?” Jones said.
“Of course not,” the author said defensively.
“Good. I’ve been listening to you, and I hear your message that the herd should be culled. But I also hear your other message, that the elite should be spared. Am I hearing that correctly?”
“Yes, I believe the best and the brightest should be left to inherit the Earth.”
“Would those be the best and brightest who developed nuclear weapons? Who developed technology that allowed humanity to grow from hundreds of millions to billions and thus create the very overpopulation we now face? Who developed vaccines and medicine and sanitation? Are those the best and brightest you refer to?” Jones was animated now, and there was a noticeable shift in the audience.
“I don’t think you quite understand …”
“Oh, I understand more than you could possibly imagine. You don’t believe in saving the Earth. You believe in your own superiority over everyone in this room. Tell me, what gives you the right to pick who lives and who dies? If you believe in your mission so much, will you be the first to lay down your life? Will your sons and your daughter join you in your sacrifice?”
That had caused an uproar, and some of the audience even rallied to the truth in his interruption. Jones had still been escorted out, but not before the room had descended into anarchy. With one false prophet slain, Jones had continued his quest. He went to similar lectures, and through other such meetings, he discovered a secretive network of like-minded people who wanted nothing more than to see the human race if not wiped out completely, then at least reduced to a manageable level. It was through this group that he met and befriended an elderly man called Zachariah. Or was it more truthful to say that Zachariah found and befriended him? Then came the fateful day when, attending a meeting with his new mentor (at least that was what Zachariah considered himself to Jones’ inner amusement), he was introduced to a man called Abraham.
To this day, Jones knew little about the person known only to him as Brother Abraham. What he did know was that his wealth seemed limitless, that he had power normal people couldn’t even imagine, and that his belief in a vengeful God seemed unshakeable, almost infectious. This was not the God of the Bible, although selective Bible texts were used to justify various belief systems that Abraham would spout with such passion. Like the belief that the End Times were coming, and that it was God’s will that his agents on Earth would need to be the catalyst for Armageddon. Jones always wondered why God needed people to work his miracles for him. He didn’t remember the Great Flood being outsourc
ed.
Jones knew full well that he was joining a cult, and although he wasn’t impressed by the religious aspect of it, the resources that were offered and subsequently made available to him were more than he could ever hope. The professor’s original plan was to create a virus so infectious, so contagious, and so lethal that the planet would be stripped bare of the majority of human life. Some would survive, but the festering, bloated system that allowed his family’s murderer to walk free would be brought to its knees. That was his vision, that was his purpose, his identity. That’s what kept him awake at night, the possibilities churning through his head as his imagination watched a civilisation die. But Abraham had other plans, and he slowly and methodically worked his warped influence on a mind that could not admit that it was broken.
“I know not where the quote comes from,” Abraham had said, “but I think it reflects the Godliness and the wickedness of the planet we live on. The words as I remember them are ‘When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.’” Abraham had gripped the professor’s head between his surprisingly powerful hands. “This is the Lord’s vengeance I want to bring to the world. But the Lord is merciful, so we must give his children the chance to repent. Can you do this for me?” Jones believed he could. There was something gnawing at the back of his mind, some knowledge that he felt could give Abraham exactly what he wanted. And so he worked.
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