by Neil Gaiman
There was a tug at his sleeve. It was Pigbog. He had gone a peculiar shade of gray, under the dirt.
“It means we’re in trouble,” said Pigbog.
And then the tall stranger reached up a pale motorbike gauntlet, and raised the visor of his helmet, and Big Ted found himself wishing, for the first time in his existence, that he’d lived a better life.
“Jesus Christ!” he moaned.
“I think He may be along in a minute,” said Pigbog urgently. “He’s probably looking for somewhere to park his bike. Let’s go and, and join a youf club or somethin’ … ”
But Big Ted’s invincible ignorance was his shield and armor. He didn’t move.
“Cor,” he said. “Hell’s Angels.”
War flipped him a lazy salute.
“That’s us, Big Ted,” she said. “The real McCoy.”
Famine nodded. “The Old Firm,” he said.
Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old boy had known what opportunities the future had held …
“Others promise,” he said, “we deliver.”
Big Ted looked at the fourth Horseman. “’Ere, I seen you before,” he said. “You was on the cover of that Blue Oyster Cult album. An’ I got a ring wif your … your … your head on it.”
I GET EVERYWHERE.
“Cor.” Big Ted’s big face screwed up with the effort of thought.
“Wot kind of bike you ridin’?” he said.
THE STORM RAGED around the quarry. The rope with the old car tire on it danced in the gale. Sometimes a sheet of iron, relic of an attempt at a tree house, would shake loose from its insubstantial moorings and sail away.
The Them huddled together, staring at Adam. He seemed bigger, somehow. Dog sat and growled. He was thinking of all the smells he would lose. There were no smells in Hell, apart from the sulphur. While some of them here, were, were … well, the fact was, there were no bitches in Hell either.
Adam was marching about excitedly, waving his hands in the air.
“There’ll be no end to the fun we can have,” he said. “There’ll be exploring and everything. I ’spect I can soon get the ole jungles to grow again.”
“But—but who—who’ll do the, you know, all the cooking and washing and suchlike?” quavered Brian.
“No one’ll have to do any of that stuff,” said Adam. “You can have all the food you like, loads of chips, fried onion rings, anything you like. An’ never have to wear any new clothes or have a bath if you don’t want to or anything. Or go to school or anything. Or do anything you don’t want to do, ever again. It’ll be wicked!”
THE MOON CAME UP over the Kookamundi Hills. It was very bright tonight.
Johnny Two Bones sat in the red basin of the desert. It was a sacred place, where two ancestral rocks, formed in the Dreamtime, lay as they had since the beginning. Johnny Two Bones’ walkabout was coming to an end. His cheeks and chest were smeared with red ochre, and he was singing an old song, a sort of singing map of the hills, and he was drawing patterns in the dust with his spear.
He had not eaten for two days; he had not slept. He was approaching a trance state, making him one with the Bush, putting him into communion with his ancestors.
He was nearly there.
Nearly …
He blinked. Looked around wonderingly.
“Excuse me, dear boy,” he said to himself, out loud, in precise, enunciated tones. “But have you any idea where I am?”
“Who said that?” said Johnny Two Bones.
His mouth opened. “I did.”
Johnny scratched, thoughtfully. “I take it you’re one of me ancestors, then, mate?”
“Oh. Indubitably, dear boy. Quite indubitably. In a manner of speaking. Now, to get back to my original question. Where am I?”
“Only if you’re one of my ancestors,” continued Johnny Two Bones, “why are you talking like a poofter?”
“Ah. Australia,” said Johnny Two Bones’ mouth, pronouncing the word as though it would have to be properly disinfected before he said it again. “Oh dear. Well, thank you anyway.”
“Hello? Hello?” said Johnny Two Bones.
He sat in the sand, and he waited, and he waited, but he didn’t reply.
Aziraphale had moved on.
CITRON DEUX-CHEVAUX was tonton macoute, a traveling houngan:41 he had a satchel over his shoulder, containing magical plants, medicinal plants, bits of wild cat, black candles, a powder derived chiefly from the skin of a certain dried fish, a dead centipede, a half-bottle of Chivas Regal, ten Rothmans, and a copy of What’s On In Haiti.
He hefted the knife, and, with an experienced slicing motion, cut the head from a black cockerel. Blood washed over his right hand.
“Loa ride me,” he intoned. “Gros Bon Ange come to me.”
“Where am I?” he said.
“Is that my Gros Bon Ange?” he asked himself.
“I think that’s a rather personal question,” he replied. “I mean, as these things go. But one tries, as it were. One does one’s best.”
Citron found one of his hands reaching for the cockerel.
“Rather unsanitary place to do your cooking, don’t you think? Out here in the jungle. Having a barbecue, are we? What kind of place is this?”
“Haitian,” he answered.
“Damn! Nowhere near. Still, could be worse. Ah, I must be on my way. Be good.”
And Citron Deux-Chevaux was alone in his head.
“Loas be buggered,” he muttered to himself. He stared into nothing for a while, and then reached for the satchel and its bottle of Chivas Regal. There are at least two ways to turn someone into a zombie. He was going to take the easiest.
The surf was loud on the beaches. The palms shook.
A storm was coming.
THE LIGHTS WENT UP. The Power Cable (Nebraska) Evangelical Choir launched into “Jesus Is the Telephone Repairman on the Switchboard of My Life,” and almost drowned out the sound of the rising wind.
Marvin O. Bagman adjusted his tie, checked his grin in the mirror, patted the bottom of his personal assistant (Miss Cindi Kellerhals, Penthouse Pet of the Month three years ago last July; but she had put that all behind her when she got Career), and he walked out onto the studio floor.
Jesus won’t cut you off before you’re through
With him you won’t never get a crossed line,
And when your bill comes it’ll all be properly itemized
He’s the telephone repairman on the switchboard of my life,
the choir sang. Marvin was fond of that song. He had written it himself.
Other songs he had written included: “Happy Mister Jesus,” “Jesus, Can I Come and Stay at Your Place?” “That Ol’ Fiery Cross,” “Jesus Is the Sticker on the Bumper of My Soul,” and “When I’m Swept Up by the Rapture Grab the Wheel of My Pick-Up.” They were available on Jesus Is My Buddy (LP, cassette, and CD), and were advertised every four minutes on Bagman’s evangelical network.42
Despite the fact that the lyrics didn’t rhyme, or, as a rule, make any sense, and that Marvin, who was not particularly musical, had stolen all the tunes from old country songs, Jesus Is My Buddy had sold over four million copies.
Marvin had started off as a country singer, singing old Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash songs.
He had done regular live concerts from San Quentin jail until the civil rights people got him under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause.
It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing people’s doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money.
He had found the perfect TV mix, on Marvin’s Hour of Power (“The show that put the fun back into Fundamentalist!”). Four three-minute songs from the LP, twenty minutes of Hellfir
e, and five minutes of healing people. (The remaining twenty-three minutes were spent alternately cajoling, pleading, threatening, begging, and occasionally simply asking for money.) In the early days he had actually brought people into the studio to heal, but had found that too complicated, so these days he simply proclaimed visions vouchsafed to him of viewers all across America getting magically cured as they watched. This was much simpler—he no longer needed to hire actors, and there was no way anyone could check on his success rate.43
The world is a lot more complicated than most people believe. Many people believed, for example, that Marvin was not a true Believer because he made so much money out of it. They were wrong. He believed with all his heart. He believed utterly, and spent a lot of the money that flooded in on what he really thought was the Lord’s work.
The phone line to the savior’s always free of interference
He’s in at any hour, day or night
And when you call J-E-S-U-S you always call toll free
He’s the telephone repairman on the switchboard of my life.
The first song concluded, and Marvin walked in front of the cameras and raised his arms modestly for silence. In the control booth, the engineer turned down the Applause track.
“Brothers and sisters, thank you, thank you, wasn’t that beautiful? And remember, you can hear that song and others just as edifyin’ on Jesus Is My Buddy, just phone 1-800-CASH and pledge your donation now.”
He became more serious.
“Brothers and sisters, I’ve got a message for you all, an urgent message from our Lord, for you all, man and woman and little babes, friends, let me tell you about the Apocalypse. It’s all there in your Bible, in the Revelation our Lord gave Saint John on Patmos, and in the Book of Daniel. The Lord always gives it to you straight, friends—your future. So what’s goin’ to happen?
“War. Plague. Famine. Death. Rivers urv blurd. Great earthquakes. Nukyeler missiles. Horrible times are comin’, brothers and sisters. And there’s only one way to avoid ’em.
“Before the Destruction comes—before the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride out—before the nukerler missles rain down on the unbelievers—there will come The Rapture.
“What’s the Rapture? I hear you cry.
“When the Rapture comes, brothers and sisters, all the True Believers will be swept up in the air—it don’t mind what you’re doin’, you could be in the bath, you could be at work, you could be drivin’ your car, or just sittin’ at home readin’ your Bible. Suddenly you’ll be up there in the air, in perfect and incorruptible bodies. And you’ll be up in the air, lookin’ down at the world as the years of destruction arrive. Only the faithful will be saved, only those of you who have been born again will avoid the pain and the death and the horror and the burnin’. Then will come the great war between Heaven and Hell, and Heaven will destroy the forces of Hell, and God shall wipe away the tears of the sufferin’, and there shall be no more death, or sorrow, or cryin’, or pain, and he shall rayon in glory for ever and ever—”
He stopped, suddenly.
“Well, nice try,” he said, in a completely different voice, “only it won’t be like that at all. Not really.
“I mean, you’re right about the fire and war, all that. But that Rapture stuff—well, if you could see them all in Heaven—serried ranks of them as far as the mind can follow and beyond, league after league of us, flaming swords, all that, well, what I’m trying to say is who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that’s your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add.
“And as for that stuff about Heaven inevitably winning … Well, to be honest, if it were that cut and dried, there wouldn’t be a Celestial War in the first place, would there? It’s propaganda. Pure and simple. We’ve got no more than a fifty percent chance of coming out on top. You might just as well send money to a Satanist hotline to cover your bets, although to be frank when the fire falls and the seas of blood rise you lot are all going to be civilian casualties either way. Between our war and your war, they’re going to kill everyone and let God sort it out—right?
“Anyway, sorry to stand here wittering, I’ve just a quick question—where am I?”
Marvin O. Bagman was gradually going purple.
“It’s the devil! Lord protect me! The devil is speakin’ through me!” he erupted, and interrupted himself, “Oh no, quite the opposite in fact. I’m an angel. Ah. This has to be America, doesn’t it? So sorry, can’t stay … ”
There was a pause. Marvin tried to open his mouth, but nothing happened. Whatever was in his head looked around. He looked at the studio crew, those who weren’t phoning the police, or sobbing in corners. He looked at the gray-faced cameramen.
“Gosh,” he said, “am I on television?”
CROWLEY WAS DOING a hundred and twenty miles an hour down Oxford Street.
He reached into the glove compartment for his spare pair of sunglasses, and found only cassettes. Irritably he grabbed one at random and pushed it into the slot.
He wanted Bach, but he would settle for The Traveling Wilburys.
All we need is, Radio Gaga, sang Freddie Mercury.
All I need is out, thought Crowley.
He swung around the Marble Arch Roundabout the wrong way, doing ninety. Lightning made the London skies flicker like a malfunctioning fluorescent tube.
A livid sky on London, Crowley thought, And I knew the end was near. Who had written that? Chesterton, wasn’t it? The only poet in the twentieth century to even come close to the Truth.
The Bentley headed out of London while Crowley sat back in the driver’s seat and thumbed through the singed copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter.
Near the end of the book he found a folded sheet of paper covered in Aziraphale’s neat copperplate handwriting. He unfolded it (while the Bentley’s gearstick shifted itself down to third and the car accelerated around a fruit lorry, which had unexpectedly backed out of a side street), and then he read it again.
Then he read it one more time, with a slow sinking feeling at the base of his stomach.
The car changed direction suddenly. It was now heading for the village of Tadfield, in Oxfordshire. He could be there in an hour if he hurried.
Anyway, there wasn’t really anywhere else to go.
The cassette finished, activating the car radio.
“. . . Gardeners’ Question Time coming to you from Tadfield Gardening Club. We were last here in 1953, a very nice summer, and as the team will remember it’s a rich Oxfordshire loam in the East of the parish, rising to chalk in the West, the kind of place oi say, don’t matter what you plant here, it’ll come up beautiful. Isn’t that right, Fred?”
“Yep,” said Professor Fred Windbright, Royal Botanical Gardens, “couldn’t of put it better meself.”
“Right—First question for the team, and this comes from Mr. R.P. Tyler, chairman of the local Residents Association, I do believe.”
“’hem. That’s right. Well, I’m a keen rose grower, but my prize-winning Molly McGuire lost a couple of blossoms yesterday in a rain of what were apparently fish. What does the team recommend for this, other than place netting over the garden? I mean, I’ve written to the council … ”
“Not a common problem, I’d say. Harry?”
“Mr. Tyler, let me ask you a question—were these fresh fish, or preserved?”
“Fresh, I believe.”
“Well, you’ve got no problems, my friend. I hear you’ve also been having rains of blood in these parts—and I wish we had these up in the Dales, where my garden is. Save me a fortune in fertilizers. Now, what you do is, you dig them in to your … ” CROWLEY?
Crowley said nothing.
CROWLEY. THE WAR HAS BEGUN, CROWLEY. WE NOTE WITH INTEREST THAT YOU AVOIDED THE FORCES WE EMPOWERED TO COLLECT YOU.
“Mm,” Crowley agreed.
CR
OWLEY … WE WILL WIN THIS WAR. BUT EVEN IF WE LOSE, AT LEAST AS FAR AS YOU ARE CONCERNED, IT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL. FOR AS LONG AS THERE IS ONE DEMON LEFT IN HELL, CROWLEY, YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD BEEN CREATED MORTAL.
Crowley was silent.
MORTALS CAN HOPE FOR DEATH, OR FOR REDEMPTION. YOU CAN HOPE FOR NOTHING.
ALL YOU CAN HOPE FOR IS THE MERCY OF HELL.
“Yeah?”
JUST OUR LITTLE JOKE.
“Ngk,” said Crowley.
“. . . now as keen gardeners know, it goes without sayin’ that he’s a cunnin’ little devil, your Tibetan. Tunnelin’ straight through your begonias like it was nobody’s business. A cup of tea’ll shift him, with rancid yak butter for preference—you should be able to get some at any good gard … ”
Wheee. Whizz. Pop. Static drowned out the rest of the program.
Crowley turned off the radio and bit his lower lip. Beneath the ash and soot that flaked his face, he looked very tired, and very pale, and very scared.
And, suddenly, very angry. It was the way they talked to you. As if you were a houseplant who had started shedding leaves on the carpet.
And then he turned a corner, which was meant to take him onto the slip road to the M25, from which he’d swing off onto the M40 up to Oxfordshire.
But something had happened to the M25. Something that hurt your eyes, if you looked directly at it.
From what had been the M25 London Orbital Motorway came a low chanting, a noise formed of many strands: car horns, and engines, and sirens, and the bleep of cellular telephones, and the screaming
of small children trapped by back-seat seat belts for ever. “Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds,” came the chanting, over and over again, in the secret tongue of the Black priesthood of ancient Mu.
The dreaded sigil Odegra, thought Crowley, as he swung the car around, heading for the North Circular. I did that—that’s my fault. It could have been just another motorway. A good job, I’ll grant you, but was it really worthwhile? It’s all out of control. Heaven and Hell aren’t running things any more, it’s like the whole planet is a Third World country that’s finally got the Bomb …
Then he began to smile. He snapped his fingers. A pair of dark glasses materialized out of his eyes. The ash vanished from his suit and his skin.
