by Joseph Kiel
Stella had told him she was going to leave. After three years of going out and twelve weeks of being engaged to him, she had now abandoned their path. It had left him with such an empty, cold feeling, much colder than the salty waters that soaked into his shoes.
He’d given her everything he possibly could. He’d bought her all those gifts, taken her on holidays, treated her like a princess, told her she was beautiful, cooked her meals. In fact he’d done nearly everything on the list in that GQ article, ‘Gestures to keep your romance alive’.
Samuel knew that he had given her his complete heart. He knew that he was going to give Stella the perfect life, to devote himself to her and bring her endless happiness. Always. As he had declared.
But she didn’t want it. It wasn’t good enough for her. He wasn’t good enough. Where had he gone wrong? It didn’t make sense. How could she hope for a better life with someone else? What more could anyone else offer her?
And what was he to do with his feelings now there was no longer anywhere for them to flow? It was as if the course of a beautiful river had reached a void, and the waters now flowed aimlessly into nothingness. Samuel had lost his head in the romance, and without his senses to guide him, the blood flowed freely from his neck into a dark pool beneath himself, slowly draining his life-force away.
Sam, I’m so sorry. I’m in love with someone else.
That bastard student. He’d ruined everything. He’d destroyed his life. What the hell did she see in him? Was he better looking than him? He couldn’t be. Samuel knew that he was attractive. He looked after his body; he ate the right things, went to the gym and toned his muscles. He was a beautiful person. Yet still he didn’t have that special something that that student must have, whatever that ‘something’ was.
I’m in love with someone else. I always have been.
It was worse than if she were to have died. It had been one big meaningless failure. All along when he’d seen that look of discontent in her eye and had tried even harder to love her and be there for her, and yet she didn’t really love him. Why had she done this to him?
He bowed his head. It was then that he noticed he was standing ankle deep in the brine.
‘Oh no.’
White Gucci trainers. Bought only two weeks ago. The leather still had that shine of newness to them, or at least they did do half an hour ago. They were most probably ruined now. It didn’t matter though.
When he got walking they would hopefully start to dry out. When he got to the Rotary meeting this evening, everyone would be too distracted by his glittering smile to notice that the hems of his trousers might be damp or his shoes might be a little sandy.
Those minor details would belie the gentleman he was to everyone, they would be the only evidence of the savage black dog that ran wild inside him, clawing at his insides and tearing his resolve to shreds.
Samuel, your spring fete went tremendously! We’ve far exceeded our target. Thank you so much for your efforts.
So human, so wholesome. Everyone admired Samuel Allington. Everyone was so proud of him, the one who was always there to lend a hand, always there with a smile. The chap was just always happy. How Rotarians looked on the young man wishing their own children were like him.
We need someone to organise a fundraiser for the Flying Ambulance. How about it?
Everyone could rely on Samuel. He never let anyone down. But he couldn’t contain the black dog anymore, constantly filling his mind with its clamorous barking.
I’m so sorry. I’m in love with someone else.
Lightning flickered in the sky. A storm had approached from nowhere and was moments away from swallowing the sun. Rain would soon begin to lash down, the deafening sound of thunder cracks would sound like the world was exploding, but it wouldn’t be as ferocious as the devastating storm that had brewed inside Samuel’s mind, a storm that no one would have thought could torment such a nice gentleman as he.
No one would have known about the dark thoughts that he was now having, about the telephone call that he would make later that evening. When he got home he would dial Lucas Duffy’s number, the man whom people called The Reaper, the man who shot people and killed them.
It was his only way of answering the internal beast whose barking he could not begin to understand nor, for that matter, face. Now that his beautiful, darling Stella had left him for some poncey tosspot of a student, there was nothing else to do. There was no other way out of it.
But before that telephone call, Samuel had a meeting to go to. He had a smile to put on, had another good cause to lend his hand to. Helping to fix the world for so long, he’d never appeared as someone who needed help himself.
The Reaper would see to it though. That damned student. A bullet in his head would be the answer to everything.
Chapter 12.2
They’d been sitting on top of the scrap metal container for about an hour, the flies dancing around them in the moonlight. Larry’s legs ached and he was getting bored of the card game. Poker was never any good with just two people, and Eddie was cheating anyway.
They heard scuffling below, so Eddie shone the torch. It was Meriadoc. He’d found a branch from the green skip and wanted someone to play with him.
‘Has he found him yet?’ Larry asked.
‘Nope.’
Larry yawned.
The letter with the red wax blob still hadn’t been opened yet. They’d searched the back streets, the woods, the ruins of Dempringham abbey, they’d even hid themselves at the harbour for a few nights. Henry had told them that Devlan did a lot of fishing and that they might see him go out on a boat. But even when they’d returned there in daylight hours over an entire week, still the mysterious devil man was nowhere to be seen. They decided to cross the harbour off the list.
Next was the recycling centre. They’d also been told that Devlan was something of a repair man, and that he might visit to pick up old machines and things to fix and sell on. Henry had admitted it was a bit thin, and whilst keeping an eye on the place, Eddie sensed that the idea was as useful as the broken furniture and DVD players that filled the skips.
Eddie looked at his watch. ‘Wanna head off?’
‘Yeah,’ Larry replied as he collected up the playing cards. ‘Why is it I can never get out of the scrap heap?’
Eddie lowered himself back down to the ground and Meriadoc placed the stick at his feet. He picked it up and threw it for him. They’d been bringing him along since the start of the week. It was initially Larry’s idea, seeing how the dog was good at sniffing out people. Not that Meriadoc had any idea what Devlan smelt like, of course.
The two Guardians made their way down the lane, back towards the town. It was Larry who noticed the abandoned building in the emerging morning light, lurking from them across the fields.
‘What’s that?’
‘Dunno, mate.’
‘Want to check it out or are you too tired?’
‘Yeah, let’s take a look.’
The grounds were ringed by barbwire but they soon found a hole, probably made by some urban explorers. They crawled through and waded through the waist high stinging nettles. There were no doors on the ramshackle building, but a sign still hung above the main entrance.
‘Cameron’s Confectionery,’ Eddie read. ‘I guess we don’t need a golden ticket to get in.’
The inside was littered with empty beer cans, the remnants of a bonfire in one of the barren rooms. Definitely kids. It was more like a hellish workhouse than an abandoned sweet factory. The dust was decades thick. Broken wooden beams hung precariously from the ceiling. All the glass had been smashed from the windows.
And there were rats. Big fat ones that scampered from them as Larry shone the beam of the torch across the rubble floor.
‘Hello?’ Larry called out.
They heard the wind softly ululating through the shell of a building like a ghost’s breath.
‘I don’t think Meriadoc should be in here,’ Eddie said. Look at
all this broken glass. I’ll wait outside.’
‘What? Just going to leave me alone in the bowels of hell?’
‘Yup.’
Larry carried on walking along a corridor. ‘Screw you then.’
Eddie tried to usher Meriadoc back to the entrance but the dog would not move. His wide eyes stared into the blackness as though something was on the tip of his senses.
Eddie had no choice but to follow Larry, so he ventured on, Meriadoc walking precisely by his side. The dog wasn’t going to leave either of them inside this place. Good old Meriadoc.
Further on, Larry turned a corner and immediately shouted: ‘Holy!’
It came out like a breathless whisper and was immediately followed by barking. It was the first time Meriadoc had spoken since that day on the common. Eddie darted over to his friend.
Two shrunken red eyes glowed at them. Larry whipped the torch up and they saw a diabolical creature sitting on a grubby mattress, pulling a hood over his long, scraggly hair that looked like a mass of snakes wriggling on his head.
The demon put on a pair of shades and slowly rose from his bed to examine what had woken him from his nightmare-filled sleep.
‘Keep the torch on him,’ Eddie whispered as a cold spasm went through his blood.
‘Harmless. He won’t hurt us,’ Larry murmured.
‘What do you want?’ the creature growled.
‘Are you…’ Larry began in a slightly high-pitched voice. ‘Are you Devlan?’
‘Do I know you?’
‘We work for Henry Maristow. He has something for you.’
As Larry reached into his coat pocket to bring out the letter, the creature suddenly sprung out of the torch beam.
They didn’t see where he went, as though he’d leapt into another dimension. Larry frantically shook the torch around but he was nowhere.
‘Where is he?’
More ghostly breaths.
‘Devlan?’
‘What do you want with me?’ came a growl so close to them that it was like a voice inside their heads.
Larry took a step backwards and tripped over a pile of loose bricks. Meriadoc broke free from Eddie’s grip and approached the hooded man.
‘Hey, don’t touch my dog,’ Eddie cried.
Devlan stroked Meriadoc’s head and he barked talkatively at him.
Larry scrambled to his feet. He was about to throw the letter down and run out of there, but he knew he had to find some composure. He was certain the other Halo of Fires members acted a lot cooler than this.
‘Here. This is from Henry,’ Larry said as he offered the letter to the strange man. ‘Take it.’
Two more powerful beams of light shone on Devlan like theatre floodlights. He turned towards the entrance of the room and saw the outlines of three men.
The silhouettes stood looking on at the curious scene taking place in this abandoned factory: Devlan in his secret hiding place, two ragamuffin youths, and one scrawny looking mutt whose barking had led them here in the first place.
‘Hello, Floyd,’ Devlan said.
‘Well, well, well,’ Floyd began. ‘So here is where you’ve been hiding all this time. You know this place could do with a serious housewarming.’
‘This wasn’t a surprise party?’
The towering beanpole stepped from the glare. ‘Who the hell are these two dickheads?’
‘Couple of kids out walking their dog.’
‘At five in the morning?’
Floyd approached Larry. He immediately saw the letter in his hand and snatched it off him. Larry should have twirled around in the air and scissor-kicked him or something, but right now the dazzling lights seemed to have frozen him.
‘That’s only to be opened by Devlan,’ he said to Floyd.
Floyd just looked back at him as Scrooge would have done to a beggar asking him if he could spare any change. He held the letter into the light and ripped it open.
‘Hey! Who the fuck do you think you are, you twat?’ Eddie said.
Floyd was too busy reading the letter to register any of Eddie’s words. ‘I don’t believe it!’ Floyd cried.
After stuffing the letter into his trench coat pocket, Floyd’s usual jumping bean eyes were completely still. He fixed them on Devlan. ‘You’re coming with me.’ He stormed over to his goons who continued to point the lights in everyone’s faces. ‘And bring the fucking Mystery Incorporated gang too.’
‘Even the dog?’ one of them asked.
‘Kill it,’ Floyd spat. ‘No, wait. Bring it too.’
‘We’re not going with you fuckwits!’ Eddie cried, clutching Meriadoc’s collar tightly.
Larry needed to do something. He needed to punch these guys, shout Hi-ru-kin and send a fireball at them, pull out a gun and get them in the crosshairs, anything.
As one of the silhouettes came bounding towards him, and as he wondered what Vladimir would do right now, the goon punched him hard in the face with a fist that he didn’t see coming.
Larry collapsed to the ground. He could no longer see any torches shining.
Chapter 12.3
Every day of the week, Michael’s radio alarm was programmed to switch on at seven, waking him up to the broadcasts of the local BBC station. At that time of day they usually played cheerful oldies from the fifties and sixties that were easy on morning ears. After slowly easing himself into the day listening to Hank Williams asking what his good looking had cooking, and Dion warning about keeping away from Runaround Sue, Michael got out of bed and put on some clothes freshly ironed the night before.
As it was a Saturday, Michael strolled down to the newsagents after breakfast. He bought his usual selection of newspapers (and a packet of lemon bon bons), which he would spend the morning reading, either on the promenade if it was nice, or back at the flat if it was raining.
This morning was quite fair, the skies littered with fluffy altocumulus as a gentle wind fluttered in off the sea. Michael found a bench along the front and began perusing the first of his newspapers, The Independent.
A hairy guy in shorts and vest jogged along the promenade, his iPod headphones ticking out a brief muffled beat as he darted past. A teenaged newspaper girl with a fluorescent yellow bag paused on her bike as she caught sight of a flock of geese swarming the skies high above. Michael looked up and saw the cloud of birds as they rhythmically flapped their wings. He brought his attention back to the newspaper, the pages rustling in the wind, the soothing sound of the waves in his ears. It was a perfect time to be reading newspapers.
But Michael couldn’t concentrate. Something wasn’t right. Far beyond the sounds of normality, the idle chatter between people, the steady roar of distant traffic, the occasional seagull that cawed as it soared over the sands, there felt to be an empty space where another sound should be: the whistling of a bomb as it fell from the sky, the crumbling boom of a building as it disintegrated to the ground in a pile of rubble.
Michael stood up and tucked his newspapers under his arm. He zipped up his white jacket tight to the neck and set off back to the flat, a familiar twisting tightness in his gut starting up again, one he usually got when he was rushing to hand in an assignment on time.
Tick-tock, time was ticking. But why was he feeling it? Perhaps when he got back to the flat he would realise that he’d left the kettle on the stove or something.
What’s with the jitters, Michael?
When he arrived back though, he remembered that he hadn’t even had a cup of tea yet this morning, for that was what he usually did after he’d gone to fetch the newspapers.
As it was still early Saturday morning, still practically the middle of the night for most of his flatmates, they’d all be fast asleep. He could do with talking to someone right now, just a little natter to make him feel that everything was all right with the world and balance his mind. Heck, even the dog would do right now.
Perhaps Danny was awake. Michael walked upstairs to his room and flung open the door. A fly buzzed at the closed
window. A dirty pair of black socks had been discarded on the floor. The duvet lay in a crumpled mess on the bed. Danny wasn’t under it. Either he’d got up very early like Michael, or, most likely, he hadn’t even come home yet. So where in the hell was he?
Michael thought again to that intuition he’d had recently. The toast. The square reduced to a triangle.
One of us is going to die.
As those slugs began to crawl around in his guts once again, he thought back to last night when he’d gone to bed. Being a light sleeper, Michael would usually hear his other flatmates arrive home in his semi-sleep, never being able to switch off properly until he’d heard all of them arrive home safely.
Last night he hadn’t slept very well. He darted towards Eddie’s room and opened the door. Empty. He ran downstairs and opened Larry’s door. Empty too. That’s when it dawned on him that not even Meriadoc was there. Everyone was missing!
In the hallway Michael picked up the telephone and dialled Danny’s mobile number. Each ring felt like a dreadful eternity.
Eventually the ringing stopped, Michael figuring that he’d reached Danny’s voicemail.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey. Danny. It’s me.’
‘Hey, Michael.’
‘Danny, um… where are you this morning?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘I just wondered where you were.’
‘What, are you my dad now?’
‘I was just asking.’
‘I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! I had a dentist appointment, all right?’
‘Eddie and Diamond didn’t come home last night.’
‘They didn’t? Have you tried calling them?’
‘No, I’m calling you first.’
‘Maybe they’re out saving the world still.’
‘They’re usually home by now.’
‘It’s the weekend. Maybe they went to the club and got lucky with a couple of bints.’
‘They went to the club with Meriadoc?’
‘Maybe not then.’
Michael paused for a moment. Listening to himself, he knew that he was sounding like a neurotic old woman. ‘Where do you think they got to?’
