The Midnight Men and Other Stories

by Lee Moan

  His features erupted in a tower of flame and all that was left was his ivory-white skull. The fires of the death’s head ringed his countenance.

  Of course, he realised. You can’t really cheat Death. There has to be balance. He may have averted Defoe’s death, but Death itself would not leave empty-handed.

  He had just enough time to let out a bitter laugh before the door was smashed inward and three armed police officers crowded into the doorway, waving guns and screaming wildly at him.

  There has to be balance . . .

  Before he could let the rifle drop to the floor, a shot rang out, deafening in that confined space, and it was the last thing he knew.

  The Witch is Dead

  It took him ten minutes to choke the life out of the old crone. It would have been quicker if she hadn’t put up such a superhuman struggle; but then, he’d expected that of her. Witches don’t die without a fight.

  When he placed his thumbs over her windpipe she immediately began to lash out, kicking at his shins until they were bruised black and bleeding, scratching at his neck and face with her long, scarlet fingernails, leaving a set of four deep gouges in each cheek, her legacy of hate tattooed indelibly on his skin. She’d have taken his eyes if he hadn’t bitten off both her thumbs in the fight.

  Micawber, her cat, appeared at one point during the struggle, and for a moment Henry thought it would come to her aid. But it only hissed at him and vanished from sight.

  In the end she was left with just her voice, but he knew from past experience that this was her most powerful weapon. She let out a stream of black curses, promising him vengeance from beyond the grave. But as her eyes rolled up into her head, and her face turned deathly white, he felt oddly calm. There was nothing she could threaten him with that would be worse than the lifetime of wretchedness she had already subjected him to. She had kept him under her malign spell for forty years and now it was going to be over. As she breathed her last, his eyes filled with tears - tears of physical and mental relief. Then she went still.

  He checked her pulse.

  The witch was dead.

  In the silence of the dusty old kitchen he stared down at her body, legs splayed, her hands (bleeding profusely from the bloody stumps of her thumbs) stretched into claws, her face white and contorted into a silent grimace. But he couldn’t relax, couldn’t quite convince himself the nightmare was over.

  It was her eyes. They were open, staring straight up at him, a demonic light still flickering. He crouched down and tried to close the lids, but they kept springing back open. She was still speaking to him through those hate-filled eyes. He still felt her hold over him. Hanging his head in resignation, he realised he would have to perform one last act to ensure she was truly dead.

  The head would have to come off.

  Wiping absently at the blood which coursed down his cheeks and onto his shirt, he went out to the shed to fetch a shovel.

  ***

  Henry had spent the last two weeks building a false wall in the basement of the house, ready for this day. He’d left a portion in the middle unfinished, a vertical gap wide enough to slip her body inside. He wrapped her corpse in cellophane, and when he dropped it behind the wall, it made a rubbery squeaking sound as it hit the cement floor. He did the same with the head. But before he placed it behind the wall, he looked through the cellophane and studied the eyes. Yes, he told himself, the fire’s gone out now. She couldn’t harm him. The spell was broken, the curse lifted.

  “Goodbye you witch,” he said, removing the wedding ring from his finger. He tore a small hole in the cellophane where her mouth was and pushed the gold band between her crooked yellow teeth. “Happy anniversary,” he whispered, and rolled the head through the gap in the wall.

  Then he set about mixing the cement and, for the first time in years, he began to whistle a happy tune.

  ***

  He snapped awake in the early hours, disturbed by the pressure on his chest. There was no light in the room, but it took him only a moment to realise that the black shape weighing down upon him was the cat. Her cat. Micawber, that filthy bag of shit!

  Then the pain came, and he realised in a rush of terror exactly what the cat was doing to him. Jolts of pain in his neck, the sound of tearing meat, and the cat’s hot, fetid breath.

  He’s tearing my throat open! He’s trying to kill me!

  He tried to bat it away, but his arms failed to respond. His body was a dead weight.

  Oh dear God, how deep has it gone already?

  The cat stopped, raising its head to look down into Henry’s eyes. Thick rivulets of blood ran from its mouth, gleaming like wet tar in the gloom. Its eyes glimmered with an uncanny light.

  And echoing through the chambers of his mind, the old woman’s voice: You didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easy, did you, darling?

  The cat licked its lips and resumed its feast.

  Together forever, isn’t that right, dear husband? Just you and me for eternity . . .

  Deus ex Machina

  On the eve of the royal wedding, Kalfas Gedras sat alone in the West Hall of the Divine Temple, stripping away the layers of his conscious self until mind and spirit were one with the gods.

  Their song came to him in a chorus of overwhelming beauty: a melancholy baritone sang to him about the past; sweet soprano voices sang of the present; and finally, the counterpoint harmonies of innumerable futures washed over him like an angry tide. For an unknown time, he became lost in the ebb and flow of voices.

  Then, without warning, the great vocal symphony came to an abrupt stop.

  There followed a moment of oblivion for Kalfas, a total absence of sound, thought or motion. Then it came, a great knife of pain slicing down through the centre of his being, tearing at the threads of his very soul. He cried out, felt his throat burn. He bit down hard, his teeth slicing into his flaccid tongue.

  The next thing he knew he was laying on his back, spread-eagled across the floor, his mouth filling with the salty taste of blood. He was remotely aware of a door crashing open at the far end of the hall. The sound of running feet. Within moments, his apprentice appeared above him, his young, smooth features lined with concern.

  “Master? Are you hurt?”

  Kalfas managed to raise himself to a sitting position, taking time to examine himself both internally and externally. The immense pain had subsided as soon as he withdrew from the Inner Place. As the echoes of that pain faded, he began to realise exactly what had happened.

  A new song. The gods had delivered a message to him through the power of music. Only the tune was dissonant, and the message was a nightmare tableau.

  “Master?” the boy said. “Is everything all right?”

  “No, my son,” Kalfas said. “No it is not.”

  ***

  Dawn came to Totopolis like a plague. The harsh rays of the sun cast the white walls of the royal city in a purple and rose wash, turning everything the colour of a bruise.

  Kalfas crossed the market square to the gates of the royal pavilion, the clunk of his staff announcing his arrival to the captain of the royal guard.

  “Muniss,” Kalfas said, “I have come to see Princess Ullmay.”

  The tall captain raised his hand. “Queen Ultavia has forbidden anyone from seeing the princess before the wedding. Even you.”

  Kalfas laughed. “But I am the princess’s spiritual guardian! Surely--”

  “Especially you.”

  Kalfas glared at Muniss, wanting to blurt out the dark knowledge he held inside him; but he knew that would be a mistake. Ultavia, Queen of Totopolis, had never trusted holy men. She was suspicious of anyone who had powers that she could not understand or control.

  Muniss stood up, towering over Kalfas. Sunlight danced across his glimmering armour. “If you have a message for Her Highness, then tell me and I will pass it on.”

  Kalfas shook his head. “The message is for Princess Ullmay’s ears only.”

  Muniss glared at Kalfas
. His powerful hands gripped the handle of his baton with a leathery creak. Kalfas held his gaze.

  “Captain,” he said in a level tone, “if I do not deliver this message to the princess, then the consequences will be grave for us all.”

  Kalfas reinforced this with a small mental projection into the captain’s mind, a glimpse of the dark truth behind his words.

  Muniss’s hard, belligerent expression faltered for a moment, and he took a half-step backwards. After a brief period of contemplation, he said: “Follow me.”

  ***

  The royal rooms were situated at the top of a high tower rising from the centre of the pavilion. The winding staircase consisted of fifty stone steps; Kalfas knew this because he counted every one as he climbed, convinced that the next one would kill him.

  When they reached the top, Muniss ordered Kalfas to remain in the hallway. Struggling for breath and slick with sweat, Kalfas gratefully agreed. Muniss approached a set of double doors flanked by two armed guards and vanished inside. He reappeared several moments later, holding back the inner curtain and beckoning Kalfas forward. Muniss glared at him as he passed, then slammed the huge doors shut behind him.

  Kalfas felt instantly intimidated by the beauty and opulence of the royal chamber. The floor was polished marble, the walls decorated in densely woven fabrics, the ceiling panels inlaid with gold. Everything here was in stark contrast to the frugal living quarters he experienced in the Divine Temple.

  The eastern wall was a wide rectangular window offering a spectacular view of the royal city. The morning sun, now a golden band on the horizon, etched sharply the princess’s elegant figure as she stood there, hands pressed against the glass, her attention drawn to something far below. Kalfas had known Ullmay since birth, and she had never looked more beautiful than she did this day. He understood then, with startling clarity, that hers was a beauty which could bring a world to war and ruin. With this unseen pressure weighing down upon him, Kalfas walked steadily towards her.

  “Princess Ullmay?”

  She turned and greeted him with a bright, unsuspecting smile. “Kalfas!” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve come to see me! You must see this!” She danced over to him and grabbed his free hand, dragging him over to the window. She pointed down into the heart of the city, her hand trembling with excitement. “See, Kalfas! They have lined the streets with narcissus! My favourite flower! So many . . .”

  She looked up at Kalfas then, her eyes wet with unbound joy, and he couldn’t help but share in it, if only for a brief moment. It was not long, however, before her brow wrinkled with concern as she sensed the melancholy surrounding him.

  “What troubles you, Kalfas?”

  Kalfas shook his head slowly. “Ullmay, I bring bad news.” When the words finally came, they fell from his lips like stones. “Ullmay, the marriage cannot go ahead.”

  Ullmay searched his face. “What? But why?”

  “Because . . . if it does, the world is doomed,” he said. “I have foreseen it.”

  “Please, Kalfas. Explain.”

  “During my morning meditation, I received a message from the gods. Within the next generation, a war will come. The centuries of peace we have enjoyed, this Era of Light, will be shattered. Our world—the world the gods Intervened to protect—will have returned to a state like the dark days of old, only worse. The war will claim the lives of almost every soul on the planet.” He paused. “That is our destiny, Ullmay. If this marriage goes ahead, this world will descend into anarchy.”

  Ullmay’s eyes shifted around the landscape, as she absorbed this information. “But how?”

  Kalfas sighed. “The Clan people still believe in the old gods, Ullmay. They will never accept a monarch who believes in the Gods of the Intervention. Your mother tells us this marriage will break down divisions between us and the Clans. But the truth is, this marriage will ignite a war on a scale even I can scarcely comprehend.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, princess and holy man adrift in their own thoughts, before Ullmay turned suddenly and walked away. Kalfas saw the turmoil in her eyes, and a great weight settled on his heart.

  She stopped in front of the vast mural which covered the west wall, an illustration of The Intervention. Giant hands reached down out of a clear blue sky, plucking missiles from their path to destruction. The image had been romanticised, the hands of the gods drawn with immaculate care; the reality of that event, as described by many millions of eyewitnesses, was that the hands were less substantial, as if made of cloud vapour, but visible nonetheless.

  The event changed the nature of human existence forever. Finally, after generations of feeling unwanted and alone, mankind had been given indisputable proof of the existence of a higher power; and more, a higher power that cared about its children.

  “Kalfas,” Ullmay said, her eyes fixed on the mural, “two hundred years ago, when the gods intervened, we were saved from destruction, from ourselves. Will they not intervene this time?”

  He shook his head. “No, Ullmay. Not this time.”

  “But why?”

  “If they were to intervene each time we brought ourselves to the edge of extinction, would that not encourage us to lead careless, irresponsible lives?”

  Ullmay was silent for a moment. “Yes. I see the truth in that.” She turned to face him. The air of playfulness which had always defined her youthful features was gone. “What you have told me is too great, too important to accept on faith.”

  After a long silence, she reached out a trembling hand to him.

  “Show me,” she said. “Let the gods sing to me through you.”

  Kalfas hesitated. Only holy men were able to communicate directly with the gods, but it was possible for them to channel the song of the gods into lay people.

  “Ullmay, the queen would not allow it.”

  “The queen,” Ullmay replied, “is not here.”

  Kalfas took her pale, slender hands in his and led her to a marble bench where they sat down. After his earlier meditation, the Inner Place was an open reservoir to him now, and he was able to immerse himself in the divine voices instantly, sending their bitter-sweet music straight to the mind and heart of the princess . . .

  ***

  A solo soprano voice fills Ullmay’s senses, a lilting melody which rises and falls to denote the passage of time. It is a tender song, as fragile as gossamer thread, weaving a tapestry of images inside her mind:

  Bliss. The sweetness of a blossoming love. The laughter of a husband, the tender touch of a lover. The ecstasy of a new life. A son. The light of hope in those newborn eyes. A time of peace on New Earth. And then—

  Sorrow. The Queen is dead. The people mourn. Their songs of elegy intertwine with the music of the gods. But there is a discordant theme running like a cancer through the heart of it all. The clans are plotting. They have seen a weakness in this woman they must now call Queen. There is evil abroad in the royal house. Death--

  Ullmay cries out as a rush of dissonant sounds fills her mind. She feels the pain through the bass of the song, and sees the terrible truth - her own son murdered in his crib, his scarlet lifeblood staining the white of her maternity robes.

  Murder!

  The feeling of loss is raw, and soon gives way to hatred and her own poisonous desire for revenge.

  The song descends into harsh, persistent drumming--the drums of war--and the images in her mind’s eye run to violence, bloodshed, death. She sees a future Earth, empty and lifeless, the land and sky bathed in blood. The rivers are gone, dried to dusty valleys; the lakes are empty craters in the earth. The bones of her people lie baking in the sun, their ashes scattered to the four winds . . .

  ***

  When the song ended, Ullmay gasped and her arms fell limp at her sides. She slumped back against the wall, eyes closed, hardly breathing, and for a moment Kalfas thought the experience had been too much for her. Then her eyes opened and he saw that they were filled with tears.

  “Oh, Kalfas,�
�� she whispered. “How can we avoid this fate?”

  Kalfas shook his head. “I have thought hard on it, Princess. The only solution I can find is to abandon the wedding.”

  Ullmay rose on trembling legs. “Abandon the wedding? But, Kalfas, the trouble that would cause.”

  “You are concerned about Merryn. That is understandable. After all, he is your beloved. But--”

  “It is not Merryn’s feelings which concern me, Kalfas. My mother will not tolerate such open defiance of her will. There must be another way . . .”

  The doors to the princess’s chamber suddenly rolled inward, and Ullmay, already weakened by her recent vision, stumbled backwards, into the steadying arms of the holy man.

  Queen Ultavia swept into the room, flanked by hooded priests and armed royal guards. Muniss, a cowed expression on his face, brought up the rear. Queen Ultavia stopped in the centre of the room, her harsh, bloodless features appraising Kalfas with open disdain. Kalfas could only bow his head.

  “Ullmay,” the queen said, “why is this holy man here? My express orders were that nobody was to see you before the wedding.”

  Ullmay could only stare at her mother impotently. The colour had drained from her face. Eventually she said: “Mother, Kalfas came to see me because he is my spiritual mentor--”

  “Not by my choice,” Ultavia sneered. “It was your father’s wish that you receive spiritual guidance, remember that.” She narrowed her piercing gaze on Kalfas. “Leave us now, holy man. We have important business to attend to.”

  Kalfas bowed, stepping aside.

  Queen Ultavia turned and gestured to a man standing behind her. He was dressed in simple loose garments, a tunic and plain trousers; yet the jewellery he wore around his neck was of the finest gold. A ceremonial golden dagger hung from his belt.

  “Ullmay,” the queen said, “allow me to introduce your betrothed. Merryn, Lord of the Northern Clans.”

  He bowed ostentatiously in front of the princess then rose to kiss Ullmay’s trembling hand. “It is enchanting to finally meet such a celebrated beauty in person,” he said.