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

by Peter Empringham

  The note sat a hundred and fifty feet below, one corner flickering slightly as it raised and fell in the hint of breeze playing across the canyon floor. Mary and Marcel stood at the edge of their precipice and stared down at it, clutching beers now beginning to warm.

  “It’s not going to be good, is it?” she said. He pulled a face and shook his head.

  “Unlikely. I don’t think anyone would bother sending us a letter hoping we are having a good time.” Mary pulled her head back from peering down at the fluttering paper.

  “Who’s going? We could send Reap.”

  “He’d probably cook it. Squirrel millefeuille.”

  It wasn’t inaccessible at all, of course, unless you are one of those people who have a mortal fear of being trapped in the products of Messrs Otis. The lift was playing a Bontempi rendition of Feelings. She hummed along subconsciously as the grey metal box descended.

  “Canyon.” it said, with great portent. “Doors opening.”

  The message was still where it had been placed by the hermit, now with the addition of a large number of ants, all of which were immediately introduced to the sensation of unpowered flight. The paper was lined, cheap, and folded into quarters. On the face, it read ‘Marcel de Branleur.’ She smiled. A surname. She had never really thought he might have a family name, not least since she had a suspicion he might have wiped out anyone who shared it. Thinking of the moment, not long before, when he had turned and stared at her with those deep, dark eyes, that was something she could have been tempted to overlook. She didn’t unfold the note, she simply held it by one of the corners; perhaps the one that had been wafted by the breeze on the valley floor. The lift ascended to the true horror of an ersatz Kenny G parping You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings. Even in Heaven, it appeared, no-one wanted to pay the full royalties.

  On the ledge, the Reaper had re-cloaked, and was performing some kind of stepping motion with occasional and alternate thrusts of one arm to whatever was piping through his headphones. Marcel was sitting back in his chair, reflective, not looking at her as she walked towards him, with the air of a man who had no great desire to hear the news from the messenger.

  “It’s for you.” she said, holding out the sheet of paper.

  “What does it say?” The sun was by now a mere sliver of red and purple above the horizon and she felt a drop in temperature, whether because of the dusk or trepidation about the contents of the note she didn’t know.

  “Do I get to read your mail, now?”

  “You do with this one.”

  She continued to hold out the note, watching him staring into the far distance, into which the hermit had disappeared. Eventually, convinced that he would not take it from her, she unfolded the paper and looked at the spidery writing. Cum Yew Howme it read. She turned it over as if there might be something more literate on the back.

  “Have you taught Geoffrey to read and write?” she asked.

  “I tried.” He said. “It was like introducing a Neanderthal to courtly manners. He might bow when he’s supposed to, but only to allow the drool out.”

  “This isn’t a bad effort then, all in all.” She handed him the paper and he read the words, but also flipped it in the misguided assumption that there must be more.

  “What the hell does that mean?” He sniffed the air. There was a cloying aroma of boiled game erupting from the Reaper’s cave.

  “Did you teach him punctuation?”

  “Just the basics. The colon he couldn’t process.” He sniffed again. The scent was heavy, almost liquid. “Like here, where I think my colon might not be able to process whatever chef’s doing to those poor bunnies.”

  “So it’s not a query? You know, kind of ‘are you coming home’?”

  “Nah. He was with the programme, wasn’t he? He’s not going to get all wistful, at least as long as they don’t cancel his cable subscription.”

  “So he is actually saying you have to go back. We have to go back?”

  “Only if you ignore the fact that there isn’t a single word on this page that is actually a word.”

  “We do have to ignore that, don’t we? Why on earth didn’t Justin write the bloody letter?”

  “Maybe he did.” They laughed.

  “So,” she said. They were not in the middle of nowhere, they were just nowhere. Together. Nothing happening. Sun in the day, crickets in the evening, clicks and whirrs in the night. Bright light, dark skies, stars and moon. “We have to go.”

  “We don’t. We don’t have to go. We could just stay here, you and me. Sit on the ledge, drink cold beer.”

  “And the Devil will stop looking for you?”

  He cocked his head.

  “There’s that, I suppose.” He stared out into the blackness that had fallen over the arid expanse in front of him. “Why wouldn’t we just stay here?”

  The Reaper appeared from the blackness of the cave, two plates in his hands. On each was a pile of grey matter with protruding bones and on top a spatchcocked rodent, head and fur on, front legs outstretched as if it had been caught in the middle of a desperate reach for safety.

  ”What’s that on top?” asked Mary.

  “Croot.” he replied. “Apparently we are blessed to be in its only natural habitat.”

  “What time can we leave?” said Marcel.

  18

  The Reaper insisted on travelling with them, making Mary and Marcel’s attempt to pass under any radar potentially far more fraught. The desire for secrecy largely stemmed from Marcel’s distrust of whatever reason had emerged, all of a sudden, for them to return. He knew Geoffrey only too well, and had no doubt that even the merest hint from the most minor of deities could have led to him producing the cryptic note. He had little hope that Justin would act as an of oasis of rational thought. As far as Marcel was concerned, the erroneously terminated charlatan had entirely lived up to the vapid, self-obsessed impression he gave when he first arrived. He was also aware that if Geoffrey was able to find them, he could also be forced or fooled into revealing their location without a great deal of effort. It wouldn’t take electrodes attached to his genitals to extract the information; Geoff would spill the beans if asked nicely by the Serb God of gravel, if there were such a thing. Not a difficult to decision to make, all in all, and one made significantly easier by the sight of the steamed croot.

  How to return was another question. Just because they had to go back didn’t mean they must do so with fanfare and a blaze of publicity. The highways and byways of the massive multiplicity of Heavens were alive with gods, handmaidens, nymphs, satyrs, imps, demons, and other assorted afterlife chatterati who should have been at home doing good or evil. They were bored. Millennia spent fiddling around in the psyches of the living, performing perfunctory acts of nastiness or dropping in sugar-coated pills of reward was becoming tedious.

  Marcel really didn’t want to be bumping into travelling gods. He was only too aware that he had made remarkable progress in offending and abusing large proportions of them, particularly the ones with ridiculous niche portfolios. Maize, for example. Who needs a God of maize? Maize can’t have demanded it. Hasn’t stopped Centeotl making a living out of it for aeons. Problem was, Marcel had made his contempt clear when he bumped into her after wangling an invite to the New Year party for the Young Farmers’ Gods. This legendarily immoral function consistently attracted a large number of attractive females in search of a bit of rough. After some ‘wheat and chaff’ comments and snide over-loud asides about manure, Marcel was forcibly ejected, an occurrence with which he was only too familiar.

  So, returning to the Control Room would be a journey fraught with the threat of discovery, with every chance that when he got there Geoffrey only really wanted to know where the Frenchman had put the pesto. His plan for an incognito passage involved Mary adopting the overalls of a plumber’s mate. Marcel, of course, was the plumber.

  “Why do I have to be the mate? Why can’t I be the plumber?”

  “Oh, come on!
What can you possibly know about plumbing?”

  “Marcel. You died in 1662. There wasn’t any plumbing. What’s this?” She waved an adjustable wrench.

  “That’s irrelevant. The whole point of a plumber having a mate is that he can delegate knowledge of tools and stuff to someone to whom he has to pay very little.”

  “Ok, so I’ll be the plumber. It’s a wrench. Now you know, you can be the mate.”

  “Not going to happen.” She stared at him, and he stared back, his expression fixed. “This isn’t about equality, Mary, it’s about getting back safely, without being discovered.”

  “Without you being discovered.”

  “Same thing. Look, I’ll toss you for it.” He took out his two-headed ducat, which she eyed dubiously, vaguely aware that this might not be right.

  “Heads.” She said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean am I sure?”

  “Well, it’s a bit obvious isn’t it? If it was a cheat, that would be a terrible choice. Everyone thinks that fixed coins are two-headed. Why wouldn’t they be two-tailed? If they were fixed of course, and I wouldn’t do that to you.” He smiled sweetly.

  “Okay, tails.” She said. He flipped the coin.

  The plumber (Marcel), and his mate (Mary) were accompanied by a strange figure who was tall and thin, with a very white face, a hood over his head, and a cape that appeared to have been tucked into his underpants. They crossed the hot arid plain and found the hermit sitting in front of his cave rotating a skewered croot over an open fire.

  “Ok.” He said. “Super Mario and his mate I get. The other one looks like the Grim Reaper with his cape tucked into his underpants.”

  “I am Batman in mid-change.” said The Reaper.

  “With some kind of skin condition?” asked the hermit.

  “Even Bruce Wayne is not immune to the ravages of modern life.”

  The hermit sniffed and nodded, although he gave no impression that he was swallowing the explanation.

  “I’d like to say I’m sorry to see you go.” He said.

  “That’s very kind of you.” aid Mary, hauling over her shoulder the toolbag Marcel suggested she carry.

  “No. I’d like to, but I can’t. I suppose I should be grateful that I am here forever, because the whole idea is that I am alone. So the sooner you go and find a leaking sink somewhere else, the better for me.”

  “We’re only-“ Mary began.

  “-I don’t care.” He said. “This is nothing to do with me. You shouldn’t be here and you soon won’t, so please leave quietly out of respect for our neighbours.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.” Marcel said. “Don’t assume that others won’t end up here. We could be the good guys.”

  “I’ll take the risk.” The hermit said. “Goodbye.”

  The mufti was useless in transit. Various gods and demons snarled at Marcel, not fooled by his blue overalls. The more lascivious amongst them grunted and curled their lips at the sight of Mary not only in a bib and brace but (gasp) equipped with tools. The dead and even the never alive backed against walls at the sight of The Reaper, whose disguise didn’t even fool himself, no matter how many times he said ‘Holy tunnels to the afterlife, Robin, it’s The Penguin.” It was a blessed relief to finally throw open the door to the Control Room, sniff the familiar smell of melted viscose and saturated wool, in the darkness only the streaming of green script teeming up the master screen lighting the space. From one corner the sound of Geoffrey’s gentle snores, from the other Justin’s comatose conversation with himself; to be honest, the only compliments he ever heard.

  “Is this it?” said the Reaper, distinctly unimpressed. “This sends everyone to Heaven or Hell?”

  “That’s it,” Mary said. “Thank God the living don’t know.”

  Geoffrey stared at the piece of paper handed to him by Marcel as if he were watching the Big Bang. He turned it sideways, end on end, and finally reversed it completely and held it up to the light. He slowly lowered it and placed it on his lap, atop the dried Greek yoghurt encrusting his crotch and thighs.

  “No idea.” He said.

  “You wrote it!” said Marcel.

  “I did?”

  “For Heaven’s sake, we’ve travelled for hours in this filthy kit to find out what it means.”

  “Geoff, it’s about the message.” Justin’s voice came unconcerned from where he was hunched at his terminal. He was playing online poker, which he was disappointed to find was something to do with Hell.

  They watched Geoffrey think. His face moved as though he were in some mystifying dream. There were undoubtedly moments of clarity, during which his eyebrows raised and a calm spread over his face, but these were counterpointed by expressions of fear, puzzlement, and horror. It was a process of such length it allowed The Reaper to make himself a macchiato.

  “Pan.” said Justin eventually, still glued to his screen.

  “Of course! Pan!” said Geoffrey, privy now to a great revelation.

  “Go on, then.” Marcel said.

  Geoffrey looked at him blankly.

  “Go on what?”

  “About Pan.”

  “Oh, he was here, and he wanted something. Then there’s this bit of paper. It’s like Poirot, isn’t it?”

  “Only if you tell us the solution.” Mary said. Geoffrey’s momentary interest in the whole affair waned somewhat when he realised that he was the one who would have to take the role of the Belgian detective.

  “Apocalypse, Geoff.” Justin muttered. Marcel looked from the turnip picker to the back of Justin’s head, showing no recognition of ever having heard the word. He sprang from his chair and grabbed Justin by the hair, pulling him straight over the back of his seat as it tipped, and dumping him, yelping, onto the floor.

  “Bloody hell, Marcel,” said Mary, “what are you doing?”

  “He knows.” He pointed at Marchant, who was now scrubbing, red-faced, at the top of his skull. “He bloody knows exactly why we’ve been brought back here but he’s too lazy tell us. Instead we have to have it filtered through this…” he waved disgustedly at Geoffrey, “Enigma machine. And we don’t have the key. Right, Marchant. What’s the score?”

  Justin stared up at him, his face set in a pout. “I don’t have to tell you. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “If it’s the apocalypse, I think you’ll find it has something to do with everyone.”

  “I’d tell him,” said The Reaper, “I reckon he could turn nasty.”

  Justin stared at The Reaper with some distaste, given that the cloaked figure was responsible for his being there in the first place. He could still have been in Neasden were it not for this idiot, and he had actually somehow ended up in a place to which Neasden was preferable.

  “It’s all written down.” he said finally, like a small child admitting to causing the mess on the bathroom floor. “On some papers on Geoffrey’s desk. End of the world, final battle, you are required apparently, to play a part. They must need an effete loser.”

  Marcel ignored the insult, simply looking up at Geoffrey in weary resignation. The prematurely aged face lit up and he shuffled the mess on his desk before triumphantly holding up some papers. Marcel walked over, shaking his head, one foot crunching onto Marchant’s hand- the one not rubbing at his scalp. He snatched the papers and leaned against the desk as he quickly read the pages.

  “Oh, bloody great.” he said finally.

  “What is it?” asked Mary.

  “Their egos have finally escaped into the world. They are going to have the final battle, and we; well, idiot and I, have to organise it. There’s the venue here and everything.”

  “Why you?” Mary said.

  “Because apparently, me and turnip brain have the requisite contacts in the Afterworld and the incentive to get it right.”

  “Oh, pain of death again. Serves you bloody right.” Justin was inspecting his fingers for breaks.

  “Amazingly,” said M
arcel, “not. For some reason there isn’t any threat in here. More some kind of promise, actually. If it goes well, apparently I could be freed from my servitude to the dark side.

  “Goes well meaning?”

  “Not clear. Not that I trust the bastard to keep his promise anyway. He is the Devil, after all. And there’s some small print; terms and conditions apply, something about taking advice from an Independent Fate Adviser, value of reward can go down as well as up. By and large it suggests there’s just the hint of a chance I might not be interminably boiled alive.”

  “Still,” she said, “makes a change. All you’ve had from him is stick, stick, stick. At least this time you get a carrot.”

  “I fucking hate carrots.”

  19

  It would have been an understatement to say that God and The Devil were not given to socialising with each other. God’s social life was relatively limited, omnipresence notwithstanding, which in theory meant that he was always at some party or other, along with weddings and funerals. In what passes for reality he had long ago consigned the idea of being everywhere all the time to the thought processes of believers, which in fact saved him having to bother trying to do it. He hadn’t been in the same room as Satan for millennia, a fact that was just fine by The Prince Of Darkness were you ever to ask.

  Lucifer, conversely, had become something of a tart in terms of his willingness to attend functions of almost any kind. He travelled the corporeal world revelling in the profligacy, ill-feeling, and violence at events major and minor. In this, post-mortem world, no edition of Hell-O would be complete without his shadowy figure in the background of a photo sequence from a show trial or plunder party; the simpering coverage of ‘The Kraaken’s Beautiful Redesigned Lair’; the initiation of a new chamber of horrors for unsuspecting sinners. It was said, admittedly not in his hearing, that he would attend the public opening of a sinner’s throat. He rarely appeared in the same form twice, or in his natural state, but no-one who flipped through the glossy pages could have any doubt it was indeed him.