by Simon Parker
Everything happens for a reason, he thought. Even the shit he’d been through. It had all led him here to this moment. This must be his reward for committing to do God’s work, slaughtering the scum. He loved Rose, of that he was certain, but he would still carry on God’s mission for Him. He was sure that one day he would tell his love of the work he’d been called to do and that she would understand. Hell, she might even approve. Maybe she’d even help him! He was so excited at all the roads that were open to them now, of all the possible futures they might have together. As trite as it sounded, the world was truly their oyster.
He sat down to a light meal of toasted crusty bread, humus and half a jar of olives. Images of Rose swam around behind his eyes as he ate. That he could recall her so clearly amazed him. They’d been apart three hours now, yet he could still actually smell her perfume and that unique personal scent that excited him so. He didn’t know why it did. Maybe they’d been lovers in a past life. He’d read somewhere that when you died, you got to be with those you loved, lifetime after lifetime. Maybe he and Rose had spent an eternity in love already, and all his life up till now had led him with purpose to this meeting of his soulmate. God really was rewarding him for taking on his demanding work. He had even banished his mother’s venomous spirit–hopefully somewhere dark and hot–to remain in tortuous exile for all time. He never wanted to encounter that vileness again, however many lifetimes he lived through.
He cleared away his plate and settled down to watch a little telly, intending to head off to bed in a couple of hours. “All the better to dream of you, my love,” he whispered, chuckling to himself. But just before nine pm, he heard a gentle knock. He scowled at his watch, then looked toward the door. He’d never had visitors before, let alone at this time of night. He was half convinced he’d already nodded off and that the knock had been in his dream and not reality. Then it came again, a little louder this time, though still soft.
He moved to the front door, heart hammering out a tattoo in his chest. Maybe the police had found Christine’s body already. Maybe someone had seen him or his car and they had tracked him already.
Oh shit! Not so soon!
His work had barely begun. How would he be able to carry on if he was locked up? What if it was even worse than the police? What if Satan was pissed off that God had hired a new avenging angel and he’d sent a demon up into the world to stop him! No, he was just being ridiculous now, a demon would never knock so quietly and politely! He peeped through the spyhole.
Rose! Oh my God, Rose is here, at my house!
Rose, his gorgeous angel in a pretty business suit. Rose with that sexy scent. She was here. She wanted to see him and she was here! Sweet Rose. Lovely, gentle Rose had come to him. He swung the door wide, a huge grin playing across his face.
“Hi,” he said, stumbling for something to say that wouldn’t come across as too desperate, though desperate was what he was feeling right now. Desperate to see her, desperate to hold her, to kiss her and re-ignite the flame of passion from their previous incarnations.
“Hi Steve,” she said, blushing a little. “I hope you don’t mind me calling round. I just…” She paused, as if searching for an explanation for her behaviour.
“It’s great to see you, Rose,” he gushed, hoping to relieve her awkwardness. “I don’t mind you coming at all. In fact, I was just thinking about you.” At this, she gave him that gorgeous full smile that lit up her whole face and made her eyes sparkle like sunlight on rippling water.
“You’re so sweet to say that. I can’t really explain why I’m here, I just…” She paused again, “I just felt like we connected this afternoon and I hope you don’t think it’s weird or forward of me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you this afternoon. I just wanted to see you again.”
Steve’s heart nearly exploded. Yes! his mind screamed. I knew it. She is ‘The One.’ And she feels it too. He briefly raised his eyes to heaven in silent thanks to God for bringing this angel into his life. A smile softened his features, welcoming this gorgeous being into his life, into his home.
“Come in, come in, don’t stand out on the step. You must think I’m so rude.”
She briefly looked both way down the street before she entered the house. He closed the door softly behind her and ushered her through to the living room, gently touching her arm as she had touched his this afternoon. At that simple, electric touch, he felt the familiar pressure growing in his jeans. To put some distance between them, he crossed the room to turn the television off. His mother had always told him it was rude to watch telly when you had guests, at least when she was sober enough to notice it was on. It annoyed him that he was still listening to her, but in this one instance, he felt she’d been right.
“Come in…sit down…sorry about the state of the place. I’d have tidied if I’d known you were coming,” he sputtered.
“Don’t be silly. You have a lovely home, Steve. I knew you would. I could just tell when we met earlier.”
This was wonderful, a dream come true. She understood him, got him totally and didn’t care about a few things out of place. She only cared about Steve, the person. Not like all the others who judged him for everything he did or had.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, barely containing the excitement in his voice. “I’ve got pineapple juice, tea or coffee. I’m afraid I’m a little out of practice at my hosting skills. I’d have picked up something a little stronger if I’d known you were coming—not that I want to get you drunk or anything,” he quickly added when he realised how the first part of his sentence may have come across. She laughed, a warm, comfortable laugh that didn’t speak of embarrassment or of ridicule but of conspiratorial amusement. She was laughing with him, not at him, laughing at their shared awkwardness on their first date.
“Coffee will be fine, thank you,” she said, and he felt her watching him as he turned to go into the kitchen. Once he was out of sight, he punched the air and celebrated by silently mouthing the word Yes! He felt braver out of the pull of that devastatingly beautiful gaze, more at ease, so he called out, “Strange how we both felt a connection. I mean, I know we only just met, but I must admit, I knew right away that I wanted to see you again. I kind of got the idea that you felt that way too.”
He came through the doorway carrying two identical mugs and placed hers in front of her on the coffee table. In a bold move, he sat on the sofa next to her, their knees almost touching. He kept a respectful distance, not crushing or too forward, but just a bit closer than the unwritten rules of personal space allowed.
She smiled, a definite sign that she was okay with him being this close to her. She laid a hand on his thigh.
“You made me feel very strange today, Steve. I just knew that I had to see you again.”
Steve drew closer until his knees touched hers and gently laid his hand on hers. He was pleased when she didn’t withdraw it, but rather turned her palm upwards so their fingers interlocked like ten little lovers entwined on a dance floor.
They talked for hours, Steve becoming more comfortable as the time passed until he suddenly realised they’d talked into the early hours of the morning. The conversation flowed naturally and there was no shortage of topics. It felt like they had known each other intimately for years and were just catching up.
Steve was in seventh heaven. That exotic scent hanging in the air like pheromones, driving his senses wild with desire. Again, Steve glanced skyward and whispered a silent, ‘thank you.’ He wondered if it was the right time to introduce Rose to his secret work, to tell her of his mission, but decided there’d be plenty of time for that later.
They snuggled up on the sofa, both hands entwined, her legs comfortably over his. He was in love. This time he was sure—had never been more sure. He ached to be with her. Literally, physically ached, but he wanted their first date to be special. Something they could tell their children and their grandchildren about without having to censor it. Something they could cherish forever as a rom
antic memory. Clean, pure and innocent, despite its passion and intensity. A Godly coming together. A union of souls, of eternal lovers.
He excused himself briefly to go to the toilet. Once he had done what he had to do, he reached down again to touch himself gently, sensitively, imagining what it would feel like the first time his true love reached for him in that way. Then he paused a moment, allowing his swelling to go down so as not to embarrass himself when he went back to Rose.
When he exited the bathroom, she was standing there, right outside the door. She took his hand and guided it between her legs, commanding, yet not forceful. In an instant his swelling was back full force, straining at the zipper of his jeans, begging to be released.
She touched one side of his face gently with her hand, tracing the line of his scar with her fingernail. The scent of her skin was divine. Reaching up the other hand, she held his head in the softest vice in history and pulled him to her for their first kiss.
The intensity. The passion! Steve felt like he was going to explode and hoped one particular part of him didn’t as she reached for him. They kissed and groped, fully clothed like a couple of high school kids at a dance. One corner of his mind guessed they’d have to censor this bit for their children, but as she tugged urgently at his belt, those thoughts vanished like an early morning mist.
“Which way is the bedroom, Steve?” she asked, softly biting his lips as she kissed him. With the intense fire of emotion coursing through his veins, Steve led the way, locked onto those feeding lips. This wasn’t just sex; this wasn’t dirty or cheap at all. This was the reaffirmation of an eternal love affair that spanned eons. The most romantic thing ever, a moment straight from a movie. It almost moved Steve to tears, the beauty of it all. Rose didn’t leave until the early hours of the morning.
The next morning, Rose sat in her office having a coffee and biscuits for her mid-morning break, reading the local paper. The headline caught her eye and made her smile.
LOCAL MAN FOUND DEAD IN HIS HOME
Local man, Steve Winters, was found hanging in his home having apparently committed suicide. A police spokesman said Mr Winters has since been identified as the murderer of Christine McKenzie, nurse at the local council depot, found dead at her home just a few days ago. It is believed he took his own life in a fit of guilt and remorse for this crime, but the case remains open and an inquest is scheduled to be held.
She shook her head softly at the contrived way in which God had, once again, helped cover her tracks.
“Naughty, naughty Steve.” Rose chuckled softly. “I knew you were a screwed-up boy, but I didn’t have you down as a killer. Maybe we could have been soul mates after all.” She sighed.
Oh well. One less loser in the world.
She crossed the room to her notice board and stuck in another black drawing pin, one with the number 13 on it in white.
She was good at her job. She smelled her fingers as she withdrew her hand and hoped that her perfume still masked the unmistakable odour of death that still lingered under her finger nails, she loved that smell. She smiled to herself and returned to her work.
New Age
Revelations
A paranormal/biblical/horror short
Stephen Prior sat next to his son, Sean, staring at the huge, blank space on his wall in stark disbelief. The images cast by his retinal projector gave it the appearance of a cinema screen. He was watching the World Web News broadcast about the plight of the human race, and he couldn’t help but weep.
It had been way back in the 90’s that Stephen had first introduced the Organocom technology. It had rapidly become an everyday part of people’s life, and would prove to be instrumental in their downfall. The fate of every man, woman and child was a heavy burden to carry, but it was decades too late to shed or change that burden.
Stephen had often reminisced about those early days to Sean. Almost half a century ago he’d been in his early thirties. The air was fresher and clearer back then, and the world had been full of hope and energy. He had felt like nothing could go wrong. He thought of one day in particular, when the animal testing had been completed and the human trials began. How little he had really known about it all.
It had been May 28th, 1999 when he’d finally held the press conference that would change history. The one announcing the company’s new and exciting product along with his intention to be the first full user of the “Organocom 2000” system.
Within weeks, he underwent the first of many surgeries under Dr Samiel’s knife. At first he had looked a little scary with his head shaved and covered with scars that protruded so harshly with the bulky first-generation implants. The media had jibed him about the impracticality of such a major human investment, but his appearance softened as his hair grew back and he began to heal.
With the birth of the second generation of Organocom, the surgery would become unnecessary. The first implants had been genetically coded to ‘grow’ into the flesh where they were placed. They would become a part of the living tissue and alter the cell structure, reproducing naturally like the rest of the body’s cells. These cells would reconfigure the DNA molecules and enable them to pass on the organic technology to offspring through normal reproduction. It was quite astonishing really, what the scientists had managed to pull off with just five years of research and development in his company’s extensive lab. In layman’s terms, the offspring of a first generation implantee would not need the implants themselves. The Organocom system would simply grow and be fully functional by age twelve.
By the time Stephen had finished his fourth session of surgery, he had over £666,000 worth of cutting-edge technologies implanting itself directly into his central nervous system from various locations within his body. Within six months, his appearance was back to normal, and no one would know what he was carrying inside him.
He’d spent many months giving sales seminars that were badly shrouded as scientific lectures, telling the whole media circus of his array of Organocom systems. He had just under seven meters of nickel cadmium wire wrapped around his skull. The nanobraided wire acted as a multifunctioning transmitter and receiver. He had the latest digital retinal projector that relayed visual information such as emails, texts, video’s and even social media directly into the user’s field of vision without risk of privacy breech. He had a cochlea implant with twin functions; the notification tone of incoming messages and the caller’s voice both were inaudible to all but the user. An implant in the lining of his cheek acted as the microphone of the system for both phone calls and system commands. The company was working on a software upgrade for the system that tapped the unlimited potential of telepathy and telekinesis of the human mind, but that wouldn’t be available until the second generation system came online.
But the jewel in the crown, quite literally, was the neural network implant in the very centre of his brain which allowed him, with a simple thought, to access information and recall it to his retinal screen. He could also make outgoing calls and send text and emails, all without anyone knowing what he was doing. It worked on two levels. He could both access memories from within his own mind in the form of video clips played directly from synapse into his retinal projector, or with a simple unspoken command, he could be connected wirelessly to the rapidly growing internet and its infinite possibilities.
This was the feature he found particularly amusing in some long, boring meetings he’d had to attend. He entertained himself for hours, surfing the net in privacy while those around him droned on endlessly about statistics and implications. If the need arose for a particularly sensitive call, he didn’t even need to speak out loud. He could simply think the command and his thoughts would be digitized. The person on the other end of the line would hear a synthesised version of his voice speaking the content. It took a substantial amount of discipline to focus the mind on exactly what needed to be said and it was exhausting, which is why he only used it for the most private of calls.
The possibilities for this
equipment were quite simply boundless, and he had thrown himself into sales and promotion whole heartedly and with a confidence borne of great and true faith in his products. The Organocom systems market had made him and his company very rich indeed in an amazingly short space of time; an obscene amount of money. It had also made Dr Samiel a very wealthy man, to say the least. Nick, Dr Samiel, or Sir to everyone but Stephen and his wife, had been the instigator of the conversation that had given Stephen the original idea for the system. He had also been a staunch advocate of Stephen’s when the media had ridiculed him as a mere fantasist. It had been the doctor who had performed the surgery on the first two hundred Organocom systems sold in the open market. He had been even more determined than Stephen to make this thing a success, and between them, it had become a much bigger success than Stephen had ever envisaged.
If only he could have understood then what that priest was talking about when he had lashed out at him so vehemently in the world’s media. Now he knew only too well what Father Doohan had meant by the phrases, “Biblical catastrophe” and “Armageddon chips.” The hot saltwater finally spilled over his lower lids as he remembered all those poor souls he had sold to … what he had done to children and their grandchildren. Innocent lambs to the slaughter.
He closed his eyes and wiped at his face with the back of his hand.
He felt the pain knot in his stomach as he writhed with guilt for bringing mankind to its knees. He wished himself back into the past, wished with all his heart to go back and change things. To be able to go back and stop the project before it made it to the drawing board. Oh, the pain of clarity in hindsight. It was more than he could stand. Father Doohan had known, he had been so wise and his faith, unbending, had led his flock to what, Stephen now knew, would be their salvation. The faithful few had refused to have the implants when legislation had made them mandatory. They had gone into hiding, forming an underground resistance group. They called themselves Nirvana 12 for the number of the founding members the year it had originally been formed for action. It claimed to be the saviours of mankind’s purity, its very salvation.
