The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet)

by Peter Empringham

  The only place he had seen a real concentration of souls was at Devil’s Docks, where he and his colleagues had survived a few hairy moments at the hands of the collection of ne’er do wells and low-lifes who had chosen to co-exist and spend their waiting days causing each other pain of one kind or another. It seemed unlikely that this new collation of evil was going to launch an attack on the kind of people you would think they would be trying to recruit.

  Justin leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face roughly with his hands. He seemed to have been staring at the screen forever, and where he would only recently have been hearing in his head the steady ker-ching of his income, his imagination was now filled with the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Simply to change the unending stream of bad news before his eyes, he flicked back to the main screen of the Afternet, listlessly scrolling through the list of games, wondering whether to play Super Mario Kart while Rome burned. A brightly coloured panel flashed onto the screen, advertising something called The Afternet World Cup. He’d never understood the appeal of football, entirely unable to find a way of making money from it. Something sparked in his memory.

  “Geoffrey?” he said.

  The ancient man, almost the same age as Justin but with the weathered look of one at least twice his age, did not move his eyes from the screen in front of him. “Just a minute, Justin. There are four lumberjacks singing a song. What are lumberjacks?”

  When Geoffrey posed these questions, t was as if he was listing the things he didn’t know. At length, he tore himself away from the television and looked at Justin.

  “What is it, Justin?” he gestured at the screen. “Look at this. A naked man playing the organ.”

  No Mary, who would have known what to do with the computer system. No Marcel, who would have been able to consider vicious, direct action against the uprising. Just Geoffrey, who thought there was a part of the world in black and white and another in colour.

  Marchant ignored the diversion of this idiosyncratic grasp on reality.

  “You know when Mary and Marcel went to look for Slaven, they mentioned something about a football pitch, and it being really busy?”

  His companion thought for a moment.

  “Oh. Yes. Whatever a football pitch is. And they met those people we met at Devil’s Docks, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, yes they did. Maybe they’ve got something to do with the Afterworld Cup.” He felt a hint of excitement. Mary had definitely said there were unbelievable amounts of people when they had gone out there. Perhaps this had something to do with all this activity on A-Bay.

  “Do you fancy a bit of a walk? Do you know how to get us there?”

  “Of course I do, Justin. I’m not entirely useless you know. I know Marcel likes to make out he is the one who runs this place, but if it wasn’t for me there’d be cannibals munching their way through several Heavens by now.”

  Justin wasn’t very interested in the detail. He pointed to the screen, where the ad for the Cup was flashing steadily.

  “I want you to take me there. I think I know what’s going on.” He said.

  There is chaos, and there is organisation, and there are doubtless occurrences of organised chaos. The monster Ron had unwittingly spawned featured both chaos and organisation but they appeared to be existing simultaneously whilst not connecting with each other.

  The sheer numbers of people who had found their way to the vicinity of the football pitch was a source of amazement to him, to Ethel, and to the others he had co-opted into the project. By no means all of them spent all their time glued to the Cup action; they alternatively wandered around forming groups, playing music, cooking food, or simply sharing tales of life and death. They spread from the perimeter of the pitch, out up the hillsides, into the woods, and enclaves sprang up in the fields around.

  Hands that had been idle came together to make light work, and Ron and his support team now had a wooden structure on the hillside behind one of the goals, with an open front to monitor the action, and a sign proclaiming it the ‘Committee Room’. The little man wasn’t sure what Heaven might have in store for him, but it would be hard to get much better than this.

  The early rounds of the tournament were testament to the organisational skills of the assembled multitude, their enthusiasm for distraction, and by and large their limited capability at this chosen sport. Somehow, seventy-two national groupings managed to pull together eleven players with enough of their constituent parts to play the game. Needless to say, not all of the bodies in such a state had any idea about the game they were supposed to be playing.

  When previous inhabitants of Mongolia were matched against Argentina, nine of them sat in their own penalty area, lit a fire, and began to roast a sheep, while the two who had ever seen a football match ran around in vain trying to stop the well-organised opposition from scoring too many goals. Kiribati were so busy doing a haka that they were three nil down to the Swiss before they considered laying boot to ball.

  There were numerous disputes caused by the changes in the understanding of a nation between those who died in different centuries. This was particularly difficult for those who had died when Empires were in full sway. There were plenty of English souls who argued forcibly against separate representation for America, India, Australia and a host of others. They had even formed an unholy alliance with the Portugese, French and Belgians in an attempt to deny a tranche of African countries the right to appear in their own right. This turned out to be meat and drink to Ron, whose decision was announced to be final, which forced him to first rack his brains for memory of geography, and then be utterly arbitrary in the appliance of this unreliably recalled knowledge.

  Geoffrey and Justin arrived in the environs of the gathering just as the preliminary rounds were completed, thinning the massive entry to a remainder of sixteen teams, the names of which would not have been a surprise to anyone watching a World Cup on the other side of the life/death divide. Ron had called for a rest day, as much as anything for the benefit of his juvenile referee, whose enthusiasm for the role had been severely tested by the lack of knowledge of the rules demonstrated by many of the entrants.

  Ethel massaged the Brazilian boy’s feet at the back of the committee box as Ron shuffled his sheets of papers recording the results. Lucius was called upon to perform the draw for the next round, on the basis that so long as his head was elsewhere he could not possibly display any bias.

  When they emerged from The Door, Geoffrey started with shock at the scale of the gathering, and shied away, to lean against a wall of the Afternet Café.

  Justin, even though impatient to talk to Ron, was taken aback by the reaction, and put a hand on one of the old man’s shivering shoulders.

  “Are you alright, Geoffrey?”

  Geoffrey raised his eyes and looked around.

  “I’m sorry Justin. I’ve never seen so many people. Seen them really, I mean.”

  Justin looked over his shoulder. It just looked to him like any time at Piccadilly Circus, rush hour on the tube, Sale day at Top Man. He tried to put himself in the shoes of a man who had lived in one of the least populated regions of Britain, in the least populated times. And failed. But he needed Geoffrey, because he had no idea how to get back. He left his hand on the shoulder until he felt the quivering abate.

  “Are you alright?”

  Geoffrey nodded. “I’ll be okay. Just let me go first.”

  They wound through the ever-shifting crowds, skirting the pitch as they made their way towards the Committee Room. They wouldn’t have necessarily known that was where to find Ron, not knowing him that well, but the troupe of Visigoths keeping a space clear in front of the wooden structure was something of a giveaway.

  When they had with some effort climbed up to the seat of power, they were confronted by both a line of very large marauders with their arms crossed, and the sound of sawing and hammering. The former was just the Visigoths doing their job of providing security. The latter was remnants of the Vu
nu tribe of Burundi, who had forever made their living from the carving of wood and the manufacture of beautifully formed furniture with which to adorn their huts. Like the Scottish net-makers, they had quickly understood that they could not participate in the actual sport, but wanted to do something to signify their presence. They were hard at work creating the scoreboard that would illuminate the later stages of the competition.

  The Vunu were no barrier to Geoffrey and Justin’s progress, being much too involved in the perfection of dovetail joints, but the Visigoths were not inclined to step aside, and the two new arrivals were reduced to standing on tiptoe and peering between their shoulders in the hope of spotting someone they knew.

  Eventually, Geoffrey saw a small, plump lady in a floral frock walk around the front of the Committee Room, and immerse her hands in a bowl of water.

  “It’s her. ETHEL! Hello!” She looked up at the noise, but from where she was standing all she could see was German posterior. He called again and she slowly strolled up behind the wall of muscle and aroma.

  To be truthful, the closer she got, the less she could see, apart from expanses of grimy flesh, but she did keep hearing her name called, and finally managed to spot a face peering through the small gap between two of the security guards. It smiled benignly and she tried to figure out why it seemed so familiar.

  “Hallo,” she said, to buy some time.

  “Hallo Ethel. We met at Devil’s Docks. And that pub with that terrible woman.”

  “Jane Austen?” Ah! She’d got it. “You’re the one whose clothes were on fire.”

  “Just badly singed, really. Can we have a chat?”

  Ethel persuaded the Teutonic line to part for long enough to allow the two visitors to pass, and together they walked slowly up the hill towards the wooden building.

  “That lovely Mary dropped in just the other week.” Said Ethel. “I can’t work out that Marcel, though. Still, lovely to see them. Oh, and lovely that you got the system working, whatever you call it. That will help a lot of people.”

  Lovely. She seemed really happy, as though this whole event had provided some kind of focus. Her face clouded for a moment.

  “I don’t suppose you know what’s happened to Jenkin? The young lad who was staying with us? He went off with that horrible man in the suit.”

  “Mary and Marcel have gone to look for him,” said Justin, “they’ll find him, don’t worry.” She didn’t look convinced.

  They entered the building through the back, well, from the back, because it didn’t actually have one, like a Hollywood film set. Ron, in his nylon jacket and flat cap, was poring over some sheets of paper, which were spread out in front of him.

  “Ron! Look who’s come to see us. It’s Geoffrey and-“

  “Justin.” Said Justin.

  “That’s right.”

  Ron turned and smiled, like a king greeting subjects in his palace.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Geoffrey. I’ve been here for over a thousand years and I’ve never seen so many people in one place.”

  Ron puffed out his chest, steering wheel and all, as though he had discovered life on Mars.

  “This,” he swung an arm to take in the breadth of the gathering, “is the Afterworld Cup. Probably the biggest football event taking place for people who are dead. Anywhere.”

  Justin could tell that Geoffrey was about to launch into one of his interrogatory phases, probably beginning with ‘what’s football’, so he leaped into the conversation.

  “It’s fantastic, Ron. A huge achievement.”

  Life on Mars, secrets of the pyramids, Ron was ready to take on the biggest mysteries of our, or any other time. He picked up some of the sheets.

  “Look at this.” He said, barely able to contain himself. This is the formula for getting seventy-two teams down to sixteen whilst guaranteeing that everyone gets at least two games and no one plays each other twice. Fermat did it for me.” He gestured to the slight man in the corner of the box who continued to scribe on a piece of paper as he raised his hand in a greeting.

  Ron leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “He’s trying to prove his last theorem. Been doing it for five hundred years, apparently. With breaks for this draw, obviously.”

  “Well, Ron, it’s all bloody brilliant.” Justin was feeling just a touch overshadowed. “However, we think there might be a bit of a problem. It might be useful if your friend was here, the leader of those fighters. What’s his name, er-“

  “Gertrude.” Said Geoffrey.

  “Guntrick.” Said Guntrick, who had chosen that moment to enter, having been informed that Ron and Ethel had visitors. “Used to know a bloke called Gertrude. What a wuss.”

  Justin told them what was going on. Gathering of the evil within the afterworld. Buying up of weapons and ammunition. Mobilisation for some purpose.

  “It just seemed to me that there was no point them doing all of this without some big objective. These are people who have ruled their countries with no mercy. They want to recreate all of that here. They want to rule over all of these people. It looks like they are being led by Pol Pot.”

  “I thought he was that one who won the talent thing.” Said Geoffrey. “Singer. Wonky teeth.”

  “That was Paul Potts.” Justin snapped. He let everyone think about what he had said before Geoffrey’s interruption.

  “So you really think they’re coming here?” asked Ron. Justin nodded. “Guntrick, what do you think we can do?”

  “Not really my field, Ron.” Said the enormous Visigoth. “I’ve never really done defence. I’m an invader. I’m not big on being ruled, though.”

  It didn’t look good. The only muscle they had was accustomed largely to running at people shouting ‘charge’, and outside were perhaps half a million people living some kind of hippy dream.

  “Have you ever seen The Magnificent Seven?” asked Geoffrey.

  Some fifty miles away, or no miles, or a picosecond, or a walk through the right door, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini had been granted command of a division of the ever increasing Fiends Reunited Army. He accepted the commission with no good grace, harbouring the festering belief that he belonged in the upper echelon, and consequently went about his task with belligerent casual violence. Naturally enough, the behaviour he saw as a demonstration of his disgust at the appointment was seen by his immediate superior as an excellent example to others of how to fulfil your role in life.

  That his commander was Nikolai Yezkov did not improve Benito’s mood. The Italian had never been a man for detail, and although he was sure he had heard the name he couldn’t quite place it. He was a man who mixed with the leaders, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Hirohitos of his world, not with the people who worked for them. But The Afternet was no mug. The system knew the difference between a watcher and a doer, and whilst the other leaders were by no means empty suits, Mussolini was a pussycat compared to Yezkov.

  As leader of Stalin’s NKVD before Beria, Yezkov was responsible for the imprisonment of more than two million Russians, more than half of whom were executed, or died from the privations of the conditions in which they were kept. Unfortunately for him, he died drunk and broken from beatings prior to his execution and so he did not, after his death, present an edifying sight. He demonstrated nevertheless the difference between the Gold and Silver membership when Mussolini was trying to rouse his designated soldiers to begin the movement to their place of action.

  The ‘soldiers’ were a mix of cut-throats, footpads, and homi-, patri-, and fratriciders with a liberal sprinkling of abusers of various kinds. Mussolini made an example of a pair of them by flogging them to into sobbing lumps, all the while cursing the mistake the system had made in forcing him to do his own manual labour.

  “What are you doing?” asked Yezkov, lurching up behind him and staring unsteadily down at the lacerated figures on the floor.

  “I’m making an example of them.” Said Mussolini. Sure enough, the rabble had gathered behind
them to watch the punishment meted out. Yezkov unsteadily looked at Benito through his one open eye, and then down to the pair on the floor. He casually pitched each one off the edge of the mountain into a ravine an unfeasible distance below.

  As their last cries died out, he turned to his pudgy lieutenant.

  “Now they’re an example.” He said.

  As Yezkov lurched away, Benito sighed and then channelled his disappointment into lashing his troops into order. In his mind he was a great general, a charismatic leader, and he would prove that he should be part of the inner sanctum. Yezkov might have the deaths of millions on his CV, but they were only Russians. Mussolini remembered his own times at the top table of the Fascist Axis heading for world domination. He watched those under his command sorting through the pile of weaponry procured through A-Bay; a pile that was like ‘Killing Through the Ages’.

  Mussolini had instructed them to find weapons with which they were familiar. There was little point a US cavalryman who had used a Winchester rifle to slaughter women and children of the Sioux suddenly finding himself trying to control an AK-47, or an assassin for a Medellin drug cartel trying to figure which end of a crossbow to point at the target. They were a slovenly bunch, but there was some excitement for them in the sorting out of the ordnance and the fact that it signified the proximity of some action.

  Mussolini, too, had a stirring in his belly. He would show them that his silver rating was clearly a mistake. He would lead this rag-bag of vicious killers into battle. And then he would find somewhere safe, from where he could watch.

  Twenty

  Jenkin had barely left his room for three days. Outside was cold, as the end of the year approached, a string of sunny days with sharp frosts in the mornings and the watered blue skies of winter, so his windows remained firmly closed. In the evenings the noise outside was rising each night, festivities gaining momentum, and the sealing of the room coincidentally helped him to concentrate on the job at hand. The centrally heated fug reminded him of his own room at home, the sanctuary into which he had retreated, door firmly shut against whatever was taking place elsewhere in the house.