Arthur Quinn and Hell's Keeper

by Alan Early

  Gloomy clouds filled the sky for as far as he could see. They were a deep green colour and rolled over the landscape at a frightening rate, threatening heavy rainstorms. Frantic bolts of electricity shot through them here and there: spiderwebs wriggling across the billowing haze or sparking inside it, highlighting how dense the cover was. Yet the sun was still up there somewhere, hidden behind the clouds, and the surrounding air was warm. In fact, not just warm: it was hot, dry and humid; Joe would have called it ‘muggy’. A few years previously they’d taken a holiday in Spain. It had been the height of an unnaturally scorching summer and one evening, as they returned to the hotel from the beach, the day had felt just like this. Dark clouds had appeared in the sky and, within minutes, they had found themselves in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm. Afterwards, Joe had said that that weather had been unusual even for Spain. If that was the case, then it was very strange for Ireland.

  The water Arthur was floating in stretched away in front of him. It was odd. The Norns had promised to send him back to Dublin, but now he seemed to be in a lake and he couldn’t think of any lakes in Dublin. The water was still, reflecting the shifting cloud formations from above. Through the murk below, he could see some dark forms but couldn’t make out what they were. Arthur looked to his side and the sight made him gasp. More shocking than the amount of water – even more terrifying than the green and stormy sky – were the buildings he could see rising out of the flood. On either side, grey Georgian-era structures peeped out of the water. In some cases he could only see the slanted peaks of the roofs; in others he could see the top few storeys. Many of the windows had been smashed in and water had flowed into the buildings themselves. He suddenly realised what the dark shapes underneath him had been and he dipped his head below the surface of the water for a second look.

  They were cars and statues and park-benches and bins – all remnants of the street below. He could now even make out the first and second floors of the buildings, enveloped by the great flood. He took his head back out. He was more breathless now than he’d been the first time. But now it had nothing to do with being under water; now it was down to the shock and dread he felt at the realisation that was slowly forming in his mind. He knew where he was. He’d been here before countless times. Except the street hadn’t been flooded as it was now. He waved his arm through the surface of the water in front of him, rotating gently on the spot. He was sure he knew the place; he just needed confirmation, although his stomach clenched in horror at the thought of it. He stopped turning.

  The Dublin Spire loomed out of the water before him, towering above everything else in O’Connell Street. It had been erected at the turn of the century, a monument to celebrate the millennium and the city itself. It resembled a needle in design – shining steel that tapered to a fine point four hundred feet in the air – and it was the tallest structure in Dublin. Only a few months ago, Arthur had defeated the World Serpent and Loki here at the Spire itself. And now the bottom thirty or forty feet of it were submerged under the water along with every other building on O’Connell Street, the main thoroughfare of the city. As Arthur took in the sunken street around him, he realised that it wasn’t just here that was flooded. The water extended down the cross-streets, around the corner at O’Connell Bridge, up the hill at Parnell Square. Everywhere. The entire city was under water. Without Arthur to stop him, it looked like Loki had already won.

  For a while, Arthur floated aimlessly, trying to take in what had happened. The Norns must have sent him back too late. That was it. How was he expected to fix it now? Well, one thing was for certain: he couldn’t stay in the water forever. He had landed near the shopping district of Henry Street so he decided to doggy-paddle down that way. Here, everything was in much the same state as he’d found O’Connell Street. Only the higher buildings were tall enough to rise out of the water and, of those that did, windows had been smashed in, signs hung crookedly and electrics flashed and sparked inside the ruined properties. Some of the shops, Arthur guessed from the signs of struggle and overturned merchandise inside, had been looted. The only sound he heard as he swam down the street was a siren whining agitatedly in the distance.

  He could faintly see the bright sphere of the sun through the clouds, looking like a silver coin at the bottom of a muddy pond. Although the presence of the green, electrified clouds was worrying, he was glad that the sun couldn’t penetrate them to add to the stifling warmth of the air. If it had he doubted that he’d have the energy to keep afloat, let alone swim. He had to stop and rest several times as he swam the length of the street. His backpack was weighing him down and making the going tough, but he didn’t want to risk losing it and had no other way of carrying it. And because it was on his back, he couldn’t take off his soaking hoodie, so had no choice but to keep struggling onwards.

  Towards the end of the street, he came to a shop he recognised. ‘Toyz Toyz Toyz’ read the sign next to a mural of a pink teddy bear. A speech bubble coming out of its mouth – proclaiming ‘Magic and Fun under One Roof!’ – was hanging lopsided with a deep crack running down the middle. The paint on the teddy itself was cracking off, clearly weathered by incessant rain and heat. The biggest toy store in the city, it boasted three floors with any doll, action figure, board game, construction set or remote-control car that a child could possibly want. As in every other building on the street, the ground floor was completely submerged, along with half of the first floor. But from where Arthur was, the top floor seemed relatively untouched. Even the large second-storey window, which had a vinyl sticker of the trademarked bear on it, was still intact.

  It seemed as good a place as any to go, so Arthur swam through one of the smashed first-floor windows. He was careful to avoid the sides where shards of glass remained fixed in the frame. There were spots of what looked like blood on some of the slivers, Arthur noticed grimly.

  Swimming through the shop gave Arthur the creeps. It just felt wrong. The first floor had been home to the girls’ section and every surface had been painted one shade of pink or another. A single fluorescent bulb buzzed overhead – crackling out sparks every few seconds – but it provided him with just enough light to see. Baby and Barbie dolls floated in the water and were swept aside by the waves from his kicks. One of the doll’s voice boxes was malfunctioning in the wet and kept repeating the same word over and over, only in a hoarse, staticky crackle: ‘Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!’ A shiver crept up his spine as he passed the yapping doll and he couldn’t resist shoving it under the flood to silence it.

  He made his way towards an escalator that stretched out of the water and led to the top floor. Like almost everything else in the store, its electrics had failed and the stairs were at rest now. He reached the escalator and stepped onto the nearest tread. He looked over the handrail but, seeing only darkness descending towards the ground floor, he turned and climbed the steps.

  The top storey of the toy shop was just as he remembered it from his brief visit last October. Half of it was taken up with floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed full of action figures, play-sets, transforming trucks and so on. The other half contained large toys for all ages: bikes, go-karts, swings and see-saws. Unlike downstairs, not a single light was working and he had to rely on the faint daylight coming through the large windows to see by. He let his bag slide off his back and then stripped off the hoodie gratefully, flinging it away. The floor was blessedly dry here and he collapsed onto the linoleum in an exhausted heap.

  He lay on his back there for a whole half hour, although it barely felt like half a minute. He simply stared up at the dark light fixture in the ceiling, not thinking of Loki or the Norns or what had happened to the world. He concentrated on getting his strength back and he only realised that he’d been lying there for so long when he found that his clothes had dried in the stuffy heat of the shop.

  His stomach rumbled and he found that he was suddenly starving. Of course, he hadn’t eaten since the train that morning, which seemed like days ago. For all
he knew, it had been days ago. He got to his feet as more hunger pains cramped his belly and he surveyed the shop. He didn’t have to look long before he spotted his salvation. Just to the left of the escalators was a metal door marked ‘Staff Only’. He grabbed the backpack, leaving the hoodie where it was, and went through the door.

  Arthur found himself in a long corridor with cardboard boxes piled high on the right-hand side. A red emergency light glowed at the end of the hall. He walked beside the boxes, his fingers tapping off them as he went. He passed one door on his left which read ‘Storeroom’ and a second which read ‘Office’. Both were locked. The third door, though, was the one he was most interested in. ‘Canteen’, the sign read in blocky black text. He breathed a sigh of relief when he turned the handle and the door opened.

  The staff canteen was little more than a room with a basic kitchenette on one side and a breakfast table on the other side. Old newspapers, novels and copies of Heat magazine were piled on the table, alongside crusty-topped bottles of ketchup and brown sauce. A chocolate-bar wrapper lay next to the magazines but, when Arthur checked it, he found with dismay that the sweet goodness inside had all been eaten. He pulled open the two cupboards over the sink. One shelf contained a half-full box of Cornflakes, a jar of honey and a loaf of sliced bread overrun with blue mould. Beneath that were a bag of fun-sized chocolate bars and a tin of spaghetti. He found a bag of salt and vinegar crisps (his favourite) on another shelf, along with a packet of the type of curry-flavoured noodles that you just needed to add water to. There was nothing on the last shelf except cleaning products. It wasn’t exactly a four-star meal, but it looked more appetising to him now than anything he’d ever had to eat before.

  He yanked his school uniform out of his backpack, guessing he wouldn’t be needing it any time soon, and stuffed all the food inside in its place. He even took the noodles, hoping he’d be able to find a working kettle somewhere to cook them. Then he went back to the main area of the toy store. He took out the packet of crisps and a chocolate bar and set about devouring them as he wandered down the quiet aisles of the shop.

  As he munched, he remembered seeing Loki here for the first time all those months ago. He hadn’t even known who or what Loki was at the time; he had just sensed that he was evil. Although, I guess that’s all I really needed to know, he reminded himself.

  He walked past the garden toys, looking at the trampolines and inflatable pools and swings, and then saw something that made him stop. An idea popped into his head. He stared at the stack of bright-yellow sandpits, wondering if it would work. It will work, he told himself. It has to.

  Half an hour later and he was back on the water, putting his plan into action. He’d borrowed one of the sandpits, along with a pair of spades and a few other supplies. He thought of it as borrowing and really did intend to return everything once this was all over. At least that’s what he told himself.

  The idea had come to him when he’d seen the label attached to each sandpit. It showed two images: one of a couple of toddlers making sandcastles, the other of the same toddlers using the sandpit as a watertight pool. So, Arthur had reasoned, if the sandpit could be used as a paddling pool, did that mean it was watertight enough to be used as a boat?

  He was sitting in the sandpit-boat right now and it seemed to be doing the trick. It was bobbing under the surface of the water more than a real boat would, but at least it was holding him afloat. He rowed out through the first-floor window, using one of the spades as an oar. He took the second one as a spare, just in case. Getting through the window was a tight squeeze but he managed it. Rowing was tough – especially since the round sandpit shape wasn’t exactly hydrodynamic – but it was a lot easier than the swimming had been.

  Arthur took one last look at the toy store, then turned and rowed for the Dublin estate he thought of as home.

  The outer reaches of the city were in just as dire straits as the shopping district, if not more so. Whole houses were submerged, along with garden furniture, cars, bicycles and anything else that had been rooted to the ground when the floods came. Arthur could tell he was heading in the right direction, but it was surreal rowing through the familiar yet alien landscape. Once, the sandpit-boat brushed against something and almost got trapped. Arthur looked into the water to find out what was causing the obstruction. A tall, once-healthy oak tree was under the flood and he’d gotten wedged in the thick upper branches. He managed to get free and rowed on. Moments later, he passed a house whose rooftop was just above the waterline. He could see a ladder leaning against the house leading up to the roof. Clearly some people had taken residence on top of the building as the water rose. But they weren’t there now. He shuddered to think of what might have happened to them.

  An hour later, as he was pondering why he still hadn’t seen any signs of life, he had his first indication that he wasn’t alone. A scream sounded in the distance, forcing him to stop rowing. It was high-pitched and throaty, a terrible, forlorn sound. For a while, it echoed around him, seeming to bounce off the water itself. But then it faded and he was alone again. He didn’t want to think about that scream, about the person who had made it or why they’d made it, but he couldn’t help it. He gripped his spade-paddle tighter and rowed onwards. It was all he could think of doing: get home and decide where to go from there. Even if there was no home left, he had no other place to go.

  The only other sound he heard on the rest of his journey through the dead city was just as disconcerting. While he hadn’t been able to pinpoint the location of the scream, he knew that this sound was coming from his left; he guessed towards the east. It started low then built gradually to a loud roar. It was the sound of engines, several of them at once. He couldn’t tell what kind of engines they were but he supposed they must have been from some sort of motorboats. Then, just as gradually as the noise had built, it faded away.

  It took him a while to find his bearings as he rowed through the streets in the general direction of home, but eventually he started noticing landmarks both under the water and looming above it to help guide him. Before he knew it, he was passing by his former school. Belmont had been a new construction and was a big, heavy design with sweeping curves and narrow lines. But now, like everything else, the lower half of the building was under water. All the windows had been smashed; even the glass roof had been destroyed. Graffiti covered the walls, screaming grief-laden messages. One read Burn in Hell! and beneath it someone else had sprayed We’re already in it! Looking at the school, Arthur had the feeling that somebody had actively sought to defile the building. Why would anyone want to do that, he wondered, rowing past it.

  It took him another forty minutes to reach the place where he and Joe had lived for the past few months. Only the rooftops of the estate were visible above the water, as well as the very tops of the trees on the central green area. He went in for a closer look at his former house. He reached into his backpack and took out a couple of glow sticks he had ‘borrowed’ from the toy store. He snapped them and shook vigorously, as the instructions said, then dropped the pair of them into the water. Two circles of green radiance hit the walls of the house as the sticks fell. The windows and doors all looked tightly sealed and he could see a ‘To Let’ sign under the water in the front driveway. In a weird way, he felt the same as he had when arriving at the house last October, as if he was seeing it for the very first time. He remembered that evening, he remembered unpacking his things and putting up his posters, he remembered discovering the truth about Loki in the house, he remembered having his first fight with Ash there and he remembered leaving for the last time. He found himself welling up and there was a lump in his throat so he turned towards Ash’s house.

  The Barry household had been devastated. All that remained of it was the charred and scorched shell of the roof and the outer walls. He rowed towards it for a closer look. When he was close enough, he dropped two more glow sticks into the water. The windows and doors had blown out and the insides of the house appear
ed to have been vaporised. Whatever force had destroyed the house, it was so great that the windows in the houses next to it had been blown in. A fork of lightning sparked across the clouds overhead, bathing the murky and hollow house in momentary brightness, like a camera’s flash. It was like staring into the gaping jaws of the Jormungand: empty and cold, a place of death. Whatever had happened here, it was clear that no one could have survived it. This he knew with great certainty. If anyone had been inside the house during the destruction, they had died. No doubt.

  Just then, there was a sound behind him. Roaring engines, exactly like the ones he’d heard earlier. He turned in time to see a number of jet skis race into the estate. There were about ten of them, all painted black with luminous-green speed stripes. The sigil on each side depicted a tree with a serpent coiled around the trunk: the Jormungand. Each of the riders was togged out in black from head to toe, and they wore perfectly spherical and reflective black helmets that covered their heads and faces entirely. They came to a stop over where the green should have been, in a V-shaped formation, and the visors of the helmets turned in his direction. Arthur had seen people like this before.

  They were Loki’s raiders.

  They were Loki’s wolves.

  Chapter Nine

  The raider at the front of the formation stood up on his jet ski – one leg balanced on either support – and took off his helmet. He had a shaved head and a single bushy brow arched over a pair of squinting eyes. A scar cut through the centre of his lips, seeming to split his chin in two. He snarled at Arthur, gritting his teeth.