Epilogue
The man who would not bend, otherwise known as Ed Bright, picked his way through the wreckage of the broken city.
He didn’t just look younger. He was younger. Maybe he’d lost a little something along the way. Hiding, roaming, scavenging. All in the carcass of a London populated, it seemed, by the faithful of the man they called the Exalted Corpse.
Ed hadn’t seen him, didn’t much care if he ever did.
He was going to work, and no man, corpse or not, was going to stop him.
He carried his briefcase to work and took it home with him at the end of the day. He was a good worker. Punctual and diligent. But tonight? Tonight, he was clocking off early, because he had company coming over.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he did, and that was the long and short of it.
Ed Bright walked carefully through the city to the hotel where his company had put him up. All expenses paid. Good company to work for, good perks. All the umbrellas he could carry.
He was on his seventh since the rain began. Funny old rain, too. Tore through the fabric of the umbrella and the soles of his leather shoes, too.
He pulled his collar a little higher and checked his watch. He was going to be late if he didn’t hurry.
Ed picked up his pace and strode through London, back to his hotel. He looked every inch the businessman. Leather shoes, black umbrella. Wool coat, thigh-length. A crisp white shirt and a heavy gray suit. Cuff links, leather belt, but no tie. He always took off his tie at the end of the day. Kind of a ritual. Like some of his colleagues would head down to the bars and restaurants to draw a line under a day’s work. Ed just took off his tie and called it good.
He reached the hotel and there, grinning, was the boss.
Naked, but the guy was a true eccentric. If you’re the boss, Ed figured, you could do whatever you liked.
The naked man smiled and rose from his armchair in the lobby.
Hand outstretched. Ed took the proffered hand and shook heartily.
“Hey, boss.”
“Mr. Bright. Good day at the office, I trust?”
Ed nodded happily. “Gasping for a cuppa, but yes, very productive. Very productive indeed.”
“A cup of tea, you say? Well, then, let me oblige.”
Where the man had held a cigarette, suddenly there was a long, thin key. Golden, intricate and delicate.
“Shall we?” said the boss with a nod of his head toward the battered briefcase Ed Bright carried with him.
“Open the case?” Ed shook his head. “Oh, no, sir…we…”
“I’m the boss, Mr. Bright, am I not?”
Ed bit his lip, unsure, but eventually he nodded.
The naked man grinned and placed the key in a lock that moments before had been a key pad.
And inside?
A flask.
Ed clapped his hands with honest delight. “What a lovely surprise! Tea?”
“What else?” said the naked man, comfortably smoking his cigarette again. He tapped the ash right there on the lobby floor. To him, the lobby was inch-deep in dust. To Ed Bright this all seemed rather elegant. Rugs and thick comfortable wing-back chairs. Good service and good company.
The naked man did like to see a strong man broken. His legs were crossed and he looked content, in the ruins of a once-plush hotel. Extremely content.
“Shall we?” said the naked man. He indicated two beautiful china teacups on a low table between the two men. “Would you pour? I do believe,” said Ed’s boss, “that it’s just about perfect timing.”
Ed checked the expensive watch on his wrist, which still, miraculously, kept perfect time. It had been a few years since the rains began. A few years to break Ed Bright. But, thought the naked man, years well spent.
4:17 p.m., according to Ed’s watch.
“Tea time it is,” said Ed with a happy smile, taking the flask and unscrewing the top. He poured steaming tea into both mugs. It smelled a little funny, maybe, but then it’d been in the flask for a long, long time.
There was nothing on the flask, nothing else inside the case. But as Ed screwed the lid back on, he noticed a number, stamped on the lid, into the steel.
16:17.
“You know, Mr. Bright? That’s a good vintage. People don’t often let tea brew long enough, eh?”
Ed nodded, and took a sip.
It was good tea. Damn good tea.
“It’s…” he said, but as he looked up to speak to the boss, he saw instead that the boss was gone, and in his place, he saw a child. Just a boy, maybe three or four years old. Naked as (his father?).
“Drink,” said the kid. The kid couldn’t be there, of course, but it wasn’t the first time Ed had seen something or someone that wasn’t there.
Ed wasn’t worried about that. He was more worried about the voices he was hearing, constantly, over the sound of the boy’s immeasurably long tongue stealing his tea.
Louder and louder now. The kid’s lolling tongue lapped at Ed’s rare tea, rare vintage, happily and noisily, but even so, the voices he’d been hearing the last few years in every drop of burning rain were tumultuous. A cacophony, in fact.
The boy licked Ed Bright’s rose-red face.
“You taste ker-ker-crazy,” said the boy.
Ed could barely hear him over the choir of angels shouting down the sky, though.
“Done,” they said, as one. Deafening, terrible, undeniable. “It is done.”
But for some reason, before his red skin blossomed and burst, Ed thought that maybe even angels lied, and that maybe it wasn’t done at all.
About the Author
Craig Saunders has is the author of many novels and novellas, including Deadlift, A Stranger’s Grave and The Estate. He has more stories forthcoming from DarkFuse, and further fantasy tales set in the world of Rythe.
He lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and three children, likes nice people and good coffee. Find out more on Amazon, or visit:
www.craigrsaunders.blogspot.com
www.theislandarchive.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/craigrsaundersauthor
Twitter: @Grumblesprout
About the Publisher
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at www.darkfuse.com.
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