by Glen Johnson
This time he didn’t have the stub to relight the new one. Or this was the simplest way he could demonstrate my worse fears. He now leant forward slightly and pushed his hand into the flames, picking up a burning cinder of white hot wood, which he proceeded to light the cigarette with. My god, his hand. The fingers that was now holding the cigarette were steaming themselves, flesh having been burnt, the skin curling and blackened, puss running from his discoloured, now twisted fingernails. One finger was even burnt down to the bone – a fourth degree burn.
He sat back in the seat, repositioning himself more comfortably, seemingly not noticing his blackened burnt disfigured fingers. He gave one of his predatory smiles, as he lifted the cigarette to his cracked lips, his twisted black fingers up before his face, the smoke rising off of them, adding to the greyish-blue smoke from the cancer stick.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” he asked casually, as if simply asking if I think the storm will last for very long.
I couldn’t answer I simply nodded, my Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as if it was in white-water-rapids.
It was as if a casting director had picked someone to represent the devil; he ticked all the right boxes – he had found the perfect body.
He studied my eyes again. That awful grin still locked on his face. A patronizing grin, like the Joker from Batman.
Now I noticed something else about him, something alarming. His skin had, during the time he had been sitting there, started to take on a greyish colour. His face around his upturned smile looked like it was cracking. Flakes of skin dropping down on to his once spotless black jacket, now covered in grey skin and some of his loose greying hairs. Nice brush over by the way. His hair was so thinning you could see the comb lines running through his oily scalp.
He lit another cigarette from the butt of his last. Eyes still locked on mine, watching me studying him. Maybe he didn’t mix much with humanity? Or maybe I was viewed as a mere insect to him?
“I have a message for you,” he simply stated, once again in his matter-of-fact voice.
So this was it, time for me to pass on from here. Beelzebub had come for me. Possibly this is how it went for everyone. Who knows? I tried to think what I had done to have him come for me personally. Was I going to eternal torment? Was he my chauffeur, with a black horse or possibly a long black hearse waiting for me outside, ready to take me off in to the dark unknown? The headless Sir Frances Drake my driver.
“I am not here for you in that sense,” he stated, as if reading my mind. “I never come for anyone, regardless of what you have heard or read.” He blew a long plume of blue smoke towards the ceiling. “I have a message that I need you to write. A book,” he stated plainly.
I looked on in confusion. Not being able to grasp what he was asking from me.
“For way to long His Book,” he said looking at the ceiling while he said His. I had the feeling he was referring to God, but he couldn’t get the word across his lips, as if it had a bitter taste. Now I know that was simply one of his little tricks, a subtle ploy to keep me from the truth.
“His Book has been in circulation for thousands of years. Lives have changed because of it, and millions of people have died for it. For example,” he started to tick off fingers on his burnt hand, “from the Crusades of 1095 to 1291 which were to restore Christian control of the Holy Land, which were fought over a period of nearly two hundred years. Millions murdered in the name of God.” He flicked his second finger.” There was the Reconquista which was an almost seven hundred year religious crusade, from 711 to 1492, to take land away from the muslins. Another is the Massacre of Vassy, which started the thirty-six year (eight wars) French Wars of Religion, between the French Catholics and Protestants. Also the Thirty Years War of 1618, which was one of the single most destructive wars in European history, starting in Germany, by the end most European countries were involved. Then there was the Taiping Civil War from 1850 to 1864 which killed over twenty million alone when they tried to replace Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion with Christianity. And that’s not counting the countless dead from movements such as Milkhemet Mitzvah and Jihad, just to name a few. Your history is riddled with bodies due to His Book.
“All together over 800 million have died in the name of religion. That’s more than Communism, Stalin, Hitler and both World Wars put together.” He fidgeted, as if this was making him uncomfortable, or possibly enjoying the effect this was having on me.
“And of course, let us not forget, there are many things that have happened in the past that the Holy Church has simply ignored and allow to happen, or even taken an active part in.
“The church sanctioned witch hunt from the 1400’s to the 1800’s. There are no accurate numbers, but many have tried. Gottfried Christian Voigt estimate over 9,442,994 across Europe. It’s normally just round down to 9,000,000 because it’s easier to write down. Other such as Erika Wisselinck say it’s between 6 and 13 million In truth it’s closer to 14 million over the four hundred years.
“Also the African slave trade from 1451 to 1870 was never condemned by the church. It even profited from it. The death toll ranges from a mere 10 million to a staggering 150 million. In truth it was just over 56 million.” He seemed to let out a long breath, as if he was reminiscing the good old days.
“And let us not forget the zealot Christian martyrs, who alone rack up a staggering 70 million deaths.” He picked a bit of dead skin from his lip and let it flutter to the carpet.
These were staggering numbers. I had never realized religion was so destructive. Of course I had heard of the crusades and the witch hunts and the like, but there was never mention of the numbers – the dead.
“The time has come for me to tell my side of the story, for the world of man to decide, to weigh the options. Let there be two books to lead mankind.” He seemed to relax once again, now that was off his chest.
“And lets be perfectly honest, my book would have to be pretty fucked up to come anywhere near the destructive power of the bible.
“Of course, I have tried to get a book out before, a book into circulation to enlighten the masses. It still exists today, known as the Codex Gigas, or translated it means, rather boringly, The Giant Book. You may recognize it by its other name, the Devils Bible.
“I appeared to Herman the Recluse at the start of the 13th century. Herman was a self exiled monk of the Black Order living in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice near Chrudim, which is a city in eastern Bohemia, in the Pardubice region of the dreary Czech Republic.
“A grey, grey place if there ever was one. I think becoming a monk was the most exciting thing to do in that monotonous area.
“Anyway, Herman broke his monastic vows and was sentenced to be walled up alive. A slow boring death, in a slow boring world. He had already broken his vows, so when I appeared to him he had nothing to lose. He told those in charge that if he was spared the slow lingering death, he would produce a manuscript that would make their abbey famous.
“Greed is a universe failing in all humans, even supposedly religious ones.
“They agreed and provided Herman with everything he needed to complete the three hundred and twenty page book. When completed it was almost a meter long and half wide and twenty-two centimetres thick. Even today it is the largest manuscript ever produced, and can still be seem at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.
“You can see the problem though. No way to mass produce a book of that magnitude. It took Herman twenty-six years to write it. It was highly impractical.
“So I have bided my time. Waited until mankind perfected the printed word; starting in 1455 when Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg created the mechanical movable type printing press. And of course, waiting until humanity had been battered down and abused by religion. The time is now. The author is you”
I looked on in disbelief. I, Jacob Thomas Cain was to write his story. The greatest autobiography there will ever be placed on paper. Something sti
rred inside me. Call it madness; call it what you like, but this proposition appealed to me, made me feel alive.
The bible had – so I believed from Sunday school – forty or so writers, spanning over a period of fifteen centuries, ranging from kings, priests, prophets and apostles. The most famous book in existence, and most controversial. And I and I alone was going to write the Devil’s version.
My wits started to return. I was becoming a writer once again, needing information, needing answers. Adrenalin washing away any fear I now had remaining. He wasn’t going to kill me, but use me.
I went to stand, to retrieve my trusty Sony minicorder that had been my only companion for so very long. Blood now coursing through my veins.
But with a wave of his hand he stopped me. I fell backwards in my seat, as if a great force had pushed upon me. I had to catch my breath, squeeze air back into my lungs.
“Don’t be too hasty,” he said. “It will not begin this night.” His eyes locked on mine.
A bitter crushing blow fell upon my chest. Was a spell placed upon me by him? Or was it my own ambitions? The original horror story waiting for me to place on paper.
Fuck you Stephen King.
“I will return this time tomorrow,” he simply said. “Be ready for my return.” He took one more long pull upon his half-smoked cigarette, sucking it right down to the butt in one mighty drag. Then the figure in front of me smiled one last vile smile, and then simply went limp in the chair, hands now dangling down by his side. The cigarette was dropped to the carpet. His chest now laying still, no smoke circling them now.
I slowly crept to my slippered feet, carefully moving across to his side. He – or whatever was left – was now dead. A smell now wafted from the corpse. I could now see the skin had changed to a putrid grey, eyes now glassy. And I then knew I had a dead body on my hands – the empty shell of the devils transport.
I picked up the smouldering cigarette stub, tossing it into the flames. I noticed what he was using as an ashtray; a wallet. I picked it off the cold lap, tipping the ash on to the fire grate. The plastic sleeves had been all melted. American Express burned on the edges. I riffled through it. Mr. Peter Wallace Blackburn. Lived – or did live – at number thirty-eight, Dew Drive, Kingsteignton; a small village no more than forty minutes away by car. Should I call the number? How would I explain his body slumped in my chair? Or how he had got here? Besides, how would I let anyone know? The phone lines were down and my iPhone 4S didn’t work in the valley I lived in.
But none of that mattered to me at the moment. He would be back tomorrow. I had to get ready.
It took ten minutes to lift the heavy corpse outside, dragging the body around the side of the house. The wind and snow battered me from all sides, chilling me right to the bone, filling my ears and stinging my eyes and making my face red raw.
The body felt stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in hours ago. For a split second I wondered what had killed this man I now held. Did he kill him simply to use the body so he could give me a message?
I ignored the question and carried on with my task. I lay the body by the shed; within seconds the snow was resting upon it, covering it from view, cleansing it with its whiteness. Like Mother Nature spreading her white blanket over the now deceased. I struggled back inside, freezing cold, with a glass of whiskey already laid out before I started my grim task. Only liquid food tonight, my body was too excited at the prospect of what he had said. What I was to write. I couldn’t even being to imagine, even with my overactive imagination.
Then I thought; would he use the same body again tomorrow night? Should I have left it where it was? But the smell, sweet Jesus the smell was awful. No it would lie there tonight, and if he needed it I’m sure he could take it just as easily.
How was I to know that over the next week or so I would have a small graveyard appearing besides my falling-down shed – a graveyard that would stir the country into an uproar, and have a nationwide police search hunting for me.
2
Promise of Frostbite
Sleep eventually came in fits and starts. My brain was too wired with trying to put everything in prospective, numbers and events were churning around my mind. The first thing I did, when I eventually rose after midday, was look out my parlour window. Was the body still there, or was it simply a nightmare? My mind being overly tired creating strange happenings the evening before?
As I peered out the small snow incrusted window, I could make out the oval form resting below the frozen packed snow. Even with what laid beneath, the image was a beautiful one. A beauty only snow can bring, making everything so clean, so white and pure.
It had snowed throughout the night. The sky was now clear, ice cold and even more clouds gathering on the distant horizon; angry boiling pewter coloured clouds that promised even more blizzards – just as the weatherman had promised.
My eyes were now transfixed on the oval lump protruding from the white incrusted blanket. Nothing of the black clothes could be seen, but the mound was testament to the activity from the night before.
The haze from dreaming was shook from me. Reality hit me harder than any pot of strong coffee ever could. So much to do before the evening arrives and the story begins.
I had to eat something. A headache was banging inside the confines of my skull, like a small imp sat on my brain kicking the back of my eyeballs in a frenzied attack.
Food wasn’t a problem. The fridge and deep chest freezer was stocked full, as well as the parlour I was standing inside moments before. You always had to be prepared out in the middle of nowhere.
My kitchen is old, well used, and hasn’t been changed since I brought the old farmhouse. I couldn’t change what was once the heart of the building. So much had happened in this room. Its cupboards were solid wood, and well used and functional – but clean. As was the old slate work-surface. And I loved the huge 1947 vintage Richmond double basin porcelain sink (which was a bitch to keep clean). It was made to last. I didn’t have the heart to rip it all out and put a modern monstrosity in its place.
I stood in front of the huge dark green and cream coloured Aga-Rayburn cooker; as I pealed open a packet of streaky smoked bacon, dropping five juicy slices into the popping olive oil. A frenzy of spitting and smoke boiled from the hot pan. I switched on the small window fan to clear the kitchen. I started to cut some tomatoes up to add to the frying collection, and pushed a tin of backed beans into the grip of the electric tin opener. A good British fry-up. You can’t beat it.
But when I looked back into the frying pan all I could see was the burnt fingers of the dead body that was slumped in my living room chair. I recoiled, wiping the sleepiness from my tired bloodshot eyes. As I peered in the bacon once again stared back at me. But my appetite was now spoiled. I tipped the contents into the sink and turned on the tap. Steam billowed upwards momentarily blinding me. A vision of blinding snow caught me, black material between my frozen fingers; I reached out to grasp the work-surface, to feel its hard slate top under my shaking grip. Tired I thought. Just tiredness.
I finally sat down at the old large farmhouse table, a bowl of All-Bran – what I call rabbit-food – in front of me. I sat silently, spooning mouthful after mouthful of the dry tasteless stuff, looking the same going in as it would eventually be coming out. I always joked that it would be easier just to pour it straight down the toilet. It did make me feel better, or it could have been the strong pot of percolated coffee resting to one side, half empty from my thirsty drinking. Sugar now surging through my veins.
The doctor had warned me about too much sugar, but what did he know? They always told you something, every time it was something different. At my age – I was told – sugar should be kept to a minimum. Diabetes having always run in my family. I was thirty-eight going on nervous wreck. All my doctor had accomplished was making me feel like a druggie. I now only visited him once a year, regardless of my physical health. There’s nothing quite like a visit to the doctor to remind you of your o
wn mortality. And he loved to pass out tablets; at the rate he shovelled them out you would believe he owned a share in some pharmaceutical company.
I considered myself something of an old youngster. No matter what age I reached I would always feel nineteen inside. My hair was still light brown, no grey emerging around the temples just yet. Still a good stock of hair too, no thinning. But I already decided if it did start to thin I would shave it close to my head, never would I be caught with a oily brush over, like the man that now lay on my frozen back lawn.
Apart from today and yesterday I normally eat well. A good flat stomach to show for it, no flabby folds appearing just yet. I was even still able to put a new photo inside each of my books, not sticking to some old one, the same appearing year after year, trying to convince the public I was a strapping teenager still. My picture spoke for itself.
The coffee had gone cold in my hand, not realizing I had been daydreaming. Thinking over the words spoken and unspoken from the night before. Each time I ran it through my head it came out different. Once I even found myself going back to the parlour to peer at the mound by my abandoned shed. It was still there, and would be until I done something about it.
