The Watchers

by Reakes, Wendy

  Chapter 52

  Alice Burton remained transfixed at the seven Watchers in front of her vehicle, staring through the windshield with their giant legs spread apart. The headlights on the car had dimmed inexplicably, but there was enough light to see their shadows projected onto the road, increasing their body’s magnitude to gigantic, ghostly proportions. Her breath had caught in her throat and she was finding it hard to breathe. She wondered for a moment if she was having a heart attack…or maybe even a stroke.

  They were imposing figures but they were magnificent. Their torsos protruded from them like great solid mounds of muscle. Their arms, at their sides, stretched to below their powerful hips with clenched fists on hands that looked like they could crush diamonds. Behind them, their wings were facing downward, but it was their gaze that disturbed Alice more than anything else. Their eyes were piercing as a blade of light reflected from the car into their enlarged black pupils and she could tell, even from where they stood, a few metres away from the front of the car, that they were staring right at her. Their human features displayed anger; anger unlike anything she had ever seen before and it sent a chill through her bones like a static electric charge.

  Within seconds, as if they were in a trance, she watched her men alight from the other car and walk slowly past the blacked-out windows of her own. They were joined by her driver, who offered no words as he moved from behind the wheel and closed the door quietly after him. They all walked towards the waiting angels. They seemed willing and yet Alice knew they couldn’t be. They were trained to protect her, to lay down their lives, but now they looked as if their minds were being controlled by the Angels.

  “Harrrryyyy!” Keri screamed as she abandoned the car and ran towards her husband getting out of the vehicle in front. She was calling his name as she stumbled towards him and when he turned, she flung herself into his arms.

  He held her tightly. “Keri. Are you all right? Where’s Elizabeth? Where is she?”

  Keri was crying and shaking her head. “She’s safe. It’s okay.”

  Mia got out of the car and walked towards them as Tom come up behind her. The four of them stood in a group at one side of the SUV, watching the Prime Minister, Alice Burton, get out of her vehicle and walk to the front of the car as if she was being pulled along by invisible strings.

  Alice Burton had stepped out of the car. She was shaking uncontrollably, but using her strong and unyielding will, she reminded herself of who she was. The Angel monsters were pulling her in by some invisible force, but she resisted like the great leader she was.

  She spoke with indisputable authority. “You have asked for an audience with me, so I am here. What do you want?” She maintained an impenetrable stance.

  The main one responded. “My name if Uriel and these are my brothers. We represent life on earth and in heaven above. We are the true rulers of man, envoys of the Lord our God and the mother earth. We are here to warn you of the destruction you are about to inflict on the people in the Middle East. We have come to bid you lay down your weapons and move peacefully from the midst of the hatred that brews there. Even now, our people, the ‘Watchers’, are going among leaders in other countries to negotiate a treaty of peace. It is not too late for you to withdraw your part. It is not too late for them. And if you do this, the earth can continue for another five decades until the threat is repositioned and we must once more persuade you to turn away.

  He paused.

  Within those years of peace, we, our people, are prepared to work with you to build a new way of existence. It will be nothing like you have experienced before but if you trust us and you listen to our teachings, the world and your people will prosper. Not in a material way, but in a spiritual climate that will allow you to join hands with your neighbours and to connect with other nations as one. With our help, the tower of Babel will tumble at last. No more will your language, your colour or your religion divide you. You will live alongside your brothers and you will prosper in science. You will conquer the skies and you will exist in the realms of paradise. If you lay down your arms now, you will finally be free and we will all rejoice."

  There was silence in the night that surrounded them. Uriel had once again paused his oratory while Alice Burton contemplated his words.

  It was then, at that precise moment, everything went horribly wrong.

  Chapter 53

  The dark night sky had turned black, blacker than any black seen by man. It was night on night, liked folded black satin sheets. No stars and no clouds, until the black moved, displacing the other black as if atmospheric layers were being stripped away to reveal the blackness of death.

  Death was coming. Death to all.

  As the black bore down upon the town of Imber, as those below; humans and silver Angels alike, looked up to the sky, the moon suddenly appeared as if God had sent a yellow orb as a guiding light. Except God couldn’t have provided that light. Only Lucifer; to guide his warriors.

  The black Angels bore down, blanketing the fields and the buildings around Imber with their outstretched black feathered wings, soaring inside the darkness like clouds of black gauze, touching everything with their evil desires.

  The black angels bared their teeth, their fangs protruding as if they were vampires seeking blood. But blood was not the desire of the black angels. They took souls, the souls of women, wanting to mate with them like the Watchers before them, to make the black Angels more human, able to create future generations of evil.

  A blanket of black headed for the white Angels, now spreading their wings to retaliate on the sudden invasion. The devil’s Angels soared with their heads pointed downwards, with a smile on their scarred lips as their wings flapped behind them, accelerating their speed.

  Before they hit, the white Angels rose from the ground to meet them with their formidable force. Black and white collided in mid-air, their wings touching as their talons protruded to make their killings, to defend their divine. The skin of the black Angels became shredded as their limbs were twisted and gorged by the strength of the white.

  Shots were fired. British military snipers, already hidden in the grass around Imber, turned onto their backs and fired their bullets upwards into the black sky, hitting black angels as if they were on a firing range, scoring points. The Angels fell with their wings behind them, since they were lighter than their bodies. Black angels lay dead on the ground, on their backs, their mouths open and slack, their grimacing faces bloodied and torn, their wings covering the ground, as their feathers mingled with the grass. Their eyes finally closed to the night.

  Out of the hundreds, in the air, more black Angels descended as the seven white Angels fought back with might and solidarity.

  But the numbers were too great.

  More black Angels collapsed to the fields around Imber, as finally, the Watchers knew their fight had come to an end when a single shot rang out.

  Tom Stone hit the ground. The bullets were ricocheting around him like nothing he'd experienced before. Even in the movies, there was nothing that captured that sound and that bitter smell of burning flesh. The whole event was terrifying and the only reaction to the onslaught he could manage was to press his head to the ground and pray a bullet wouldn't penetrate his skull.

  His response lasted only a second. As soon as his instinct for survival kicked in and his natural desire to witness the unleashing of the weapons and to see the Angels of death descend, he raised his head and reached out to pull Mia’s prostrate body next to him. His body shielded her from the attack, his arms covering her head, as soldiers fired at will.

  The scene on Imber planes was a vision of disbelief and horror. The Watchers fought with such strength and courage, they were sure winners against the lowly blacks. Until more came and they were outnumbered. Beyond the parked cars, two men in black suits lay in pools of red as the bullets haphazardly struck, wounding and desecrating mortal flesh.

  Alice Burton was no longer there. She had been pushed to the rear of the car a
nd shoved inside by Harry Rains, as he, in turn, dragged Keri behind him to protect her too from the relentless onslaught.

  Mia was screaming, covering her ears with soft hands. “Why don’t they stop? Why don’t they stop?”

  Then, as if they had heard her words, the firing ceased, except for one single bullet.

  “Get us out of here, Harry,” Alice Burton commanded. Her voice was deep and controlled, devoid of panic or recrimination. She knew what she had to do. She simply needed to convey the instructions to the people protecting her.

  “No, wait,” Keri Rains screamed as Harry pulled her along with him. “My friends, my friends. Stop, Harry. You have to help them.”

  He forced them into the car as he jumped in the front. The engine had been kept running, as requested by the Alice Burton’s defence squad. He shifted the gear into reverse and when he looked up a black Angel hit the windscreen, its blood soaking the glass, as the veil of his feathers blocking out all light. As the two women screamed, the Angel bared its teeth in a vicious smile before his eyes rolled back into his head and he expired, expelling a mist of blackness from its mouth.

  Harry wasted no more time. He shoved his foot onto the accelerator and as the two women carried on screaming, the Angel slid off the bonnet as if he was a heavy dead bird.

  Harry leaned his arm across the back of the passenger seat, hoping to see something in the blackness to guide him out of the range of fire. The reverse lights were shining and then all of the lights brightened as if a stage had been lit and the curtain raised. A small car was behind. It was the one Keri had arrived in. He steered off the road to avoid it, reversing with speed through the long tangled grass, but just as he went past, he caught sight of a child, peering out from inside the car.

  Her eyes were wide with questions and her mouth was contorted as her lips cried a name. “Mummy…Keri,” she yelled. “Keriiii...”

  Harry slammed his foot on the brakes and stopped the car. In his haste, he fell out of the door, but when he found his feet, he took only two paces to reach the child banging on the window. He pulled the door open and dragged her into his arms. And even though the situation he found himself in gave him no time for contemplation, the feel of her arms being wrapped around his neck, as her small frame clung to him, made him want to cry.

  And Harry never cried.

  As She waited for the firing to cease, Mia saw a single Watcher collapse to his knees. Before he toppled forward to the rough earth, his head revealed a wound at the back of his head. He reached up to stem the flow of blood, and then he died, falling into the earth face first, his magnificent white wings covering him like a shroud.

  The fighting had stopped. The black Angels had disappeared into the night, going to other places to terrorise more of the human race.

  The six Watchers fell to their knees next to their brother. Mia knew what it meant. It was the end for all of them. They lived as one and died as one. It was their law of nature.

  “Uriel,” she screamed as she shoved Tom away from her body and rushed to Uriel’s side.

  Snipers were standing up, no longer camouflaged by the long grass. They had been placed there to protect the Prime Minister and protect her they had. They looked confused and exhausted as they staggered over the mass of broken and bloodied wings…They hadn’t expected the onslaught of black Angels. No one had.

  Uriel spoke with a weakness to his voice she didn’t recognise. “We will return to our world to die. You can help us,” he croaked.

  “Die?” Mia screamed again. “No…”

  Uriel raised his eyes to hers. “We cannot survive as six. We are brothers in every sense of the word. That cannot change. We live and we die together. This is our weakness.”

  Mia placed her hand over Uriel’s fingers, splayed into the dirt while holding his weight.

  “No, not your weakness,” she said with her lips trembling. “This…this is your strength.”

  Tom was yelling. “What can we do, tell us what to do…”

  Uriel pushed himself from the ground as the other five followed. They stood erect now, but without their normal towering strength, as their wings dragged on the ground behind them.

  They lifted their brother from the ground and his lifeless body was hitched aloft. Then they moved, slowly, his inert wings covering the group like a white canopy. They took a step forward, together, as they had walked in life, and then they carried his body like pall bearers, taking their dead home.

  Chapter 54

  Alice Burton was trying to retrieve her mobile phone from the floor of the car. Her right hand grappled for it as her left brushed back her unkempt hair from her eyes. Her face was devoid of colour, her lips no longer painted red. She had a snag in her stockings, running the length of her calf from her black patent leather shoes now covered in a layer of dust. When she found the phone she crossed her legs and ran a finger over the front of her shoe, making a clean shiny stripe reflecting the light from the road outside.

  “What have you done?” Keri spoke in a half-whisper, her voice guarded and controlled as if to speak any other way would allow the emotions she was feeling to tumble out of her mouth in sickening defiance. “They came to you in an act of faith. I told you that. I told you they were peaceful, that they meant you no harm. I told you they just wanted to talk, to warn you of the dangers of the political moves you were about to make. I told you, I told you…”

  “Enough, Keri!” Alice Burton snapped. “Now you listen to me. I have done everything you have asked. I came to this hell-hole of a place in good faith too. I trusted your word because we have a history. For goodness sake, Keri, we’re friends. Or have you forgotten that?”

  Keri remained silent as she soothed the girl in her arms.

  “Thank God I had my protection detail? I’m the Prime Minister, Keri. Have you forgotten that too?”

  In front, behind the wheel, Harry Rains drove the Prime Minister’s car on the A303, heading back to London. They had been surrounded by twelve armoured vehicles, immediately provided by MI5 once the news had gotten out.

  Trembling from the shock and horror of the night, the missing child Sarah huddled next to Keri, inside the folds of her beige woollen sweater.

  Harry’s eyes were darting to the sky, watching for more deadly black angels.

  Undeterred by the PM’s reprimand, Keri had reached the stage of not caring what the damn woman wanted, but now, as she contemplated her daughter still in the hands of the Watchers, she was starting to wonder if Alice Burton would be instrumental in securing the rescue of her own child, Elizabeth. “The Watchers just wanted to talk to you. They had no knowledge of the black Angels. If they had known, they would have gone prepared. They were attacked, as we were attacked. It wasn’t the fault of the Watchers. They wanted to speak of their desire for peace. To tell you how things could be better, how all our lives could be better…”

  Alice rolled her eyes. She was sitting upright now with her jacket and her skirt smoothed and in place. She was once again crease-free. “My security should never have been compromised in such a way. It won’t happen again; I can promise you that.”

  “Everything I told you was the truth. What happened out there was a shock to everyone.”

  “But you told me they were holding your daughter to ransom. She was in the back of the car you arrived in.”

  Keri shook her head as she cupped Sarah’s chin in her hand and turned her face towards the Prime Minister. “She isn’t ours. This is Sarah, the child who was taken from her parent’s home in Taunton a few weeks ago. The Watchers have been caring for her.”

  Alice clicked her tongue. “I naturally assumed she was yours.”

  Keri turned her head towards the profile of her husband driving the car. She was going through the ramifications of Harry’s actions. He should have left her there. He should have…

  A voice interrupted her thoughts “I want my mummy,” Sarah cried as the car sped into the night.

  Chapter 55

 
; Tom held her hand as they followed the Watchers home. The darkness and the eerie silence of the trek through Imber made Mia feel enraged by the chain of events that had just happened. She felt anger boil inside her, making her stomach churn, making her feel like she wanted to vomit any moment.

  Tom was silent but his hand holding hers made her feel she wasn’t alone. He was watching out for her, protecting her, as the Watchers protected their own.

  The black Angels had broken the spirit of the Watchers. She could see it in their eyes. They looked despondent, without any more fight left in them as their wings dragged in the dirt on the ground. The notion was disconcerting. Without the guardian angels, what hope did any of them have?

  And what of the world now. Were the devil Angels now seeking more prey? Were they descending upon towns and cities around the world? What would that mean? Was it now really the end of days for mankind? Mia had no answers. She had relied on Uriel for that, but now he was as lost as they, almost dead, along with his beloved brothers.

  Mia and Tom followed the Watchers down concrete steps where a gate at the top had once barricaded the way. Only recently it had been forced open from the inside, looking as if it had been crushed as it hung from its hinges. It must have been the Watchers entrance to Imber and now it was their way back. The steps led to a tunnel made of simple breeze blocks, and varied pipes ran its length, going somewhere…serving something.

  Where were they? What was that place?

  Pacing along the tunnels with the body of their brother held aloft, the Watchers turned and turned again as the bare grey passageways stretched throughout a subterranean land. Only half a mile along, they passed steel doors. Tom and Mia stopped to observe them. Steel doors underground, in the middle of nowhere? It didn’t make sense. There was no mechanism to open them, only pipes moulded into them as if it was all one piece of metal. At the side, banks of sophisticated high-tech terminals held controls to operate the rooms at the other side of the doors. Atmospheric pressure, it said on one. They walked past four more doors labelled IB530 to IB534 until they reached another blank wall where pipes ran downwards like lines of coloured threads on a loom block.