“H… hello?”
“It worked.”
“I know. Are you ready for this?”
“Ready for what?”
“A perfect world.” The shaman wanted to bang the phone down on to the table and scream at him. How could he ask such a stupid bloody question? What did he think he was getting ready for – bed? “They’re here,” he said instead. “To stop things from getting worse.”
“Do you think it was right to call demons down here? They don’t belong here.”
“No-one belongs here,” snapped the shaman. “No-one should be here.” He heard the sound of something fall on the other end of the phone and instinctively peeped out of the window again. “What was that?”
“I think it was some-one shutting a car door outside. How do figure that?”
“It isn’t right that they react to each other like this.” A person could have all the degrees in the world but common sense was not one of them. No-one should be on this planet. “They don’t belong,” he repeated. Couldn’t quite put his finger on why nobody was supposed to be here, but there was something – an annoyingly vague and unreachable spark in the back of his mind. “Each spell is that bit stronger than the last. Sunset tomorrow.”
“It’ll be done then?”
“Yes. Order shall be kept by the demons until then.” He put down the phone, effectively ending their short conversation. He hated using all of this new technology, even a telephone. People could so easily tap into your discussions, hack into your life. Not good if you were… less than human. The shaman preferred the old methods traditional of his tribe – herbs and plants and natural sorcery.
Order shall be kept by the demons. They were words he never thought he would say but then, these were special circumstances. The normal rules did not apply. Maybe that was why he felt as if no-one fit in this world. The phone rang again, probably the professor again, but he ignored it. It stopped after – he thought it was important to count – six rings. It was not important to count, he was just distracting himself. That was good, he thought, because things sometimes become glaringly obvious when you thought about something entirely. So obvious that you kicked yourself for not having picked up on it before. But nothing came forward apart from supposes, maybes and theories. Perhaps there wasn’t a reason; perhaps nobody belonged here just because they didn’t.
He stood up and trailed through the house, aimlessly, ending up at his front door. He stepped outside and hid himself in the shadow thrown by the door. It was warm and the light was creeping across the sky.
Carly gazed up at the tiny window pane, embedded high in the kitchen wall. Sunrise. No-one seemed to be fussed by the sunlight that might soon be pouring through the window.
Mika saw her worried look fixed on the window and grinned. “Don’t worry. It’s too far up to be any problem.” His glass of now warm blood lay untouched on the cold table; he stared at it thoughtfully, as if expecting images to appear in its’ surface. A bare light bulb fixed to the ceiling gave out a dim light and kept their faces in half-shadow.
To Carly, even that was comforting – the worst things always happened in darkness. Perpetual light would only keep the bad things away for so long, though. Like maggots in a bad apple, they always found a way in to destroy something pure and sweet. “What’s going to happen after the apocalypse? What’s going to happen to the ones who survive it?” She hadn’t had the patience to read the whole lot of print outs like him.
Robyn opened the tiny fridge and tossed an out of date chocolate bar over to Carly. “We used to keep children.”
“K-keep them?” she stammered in the bitter cold of the unheated room. Even the rising sun peeping through the window did nothing to raise the temperature. Not even a few degrees.
“Oh, it was all very clean and humane. Humane – who am I kidding? We kept them, tortured them, traumatised them for life.”
“And you’re… p-proud of that?” They had violated those poor kids, ripped away their innocence. How could she think this was just a fun adventure? Oh, right, because… evil.
Robyn smiled to show even, white teeth. “Oh, yes. It was a game to them… at first. Then they learnt what we are – the monsters under the bed that no-one thinks exist. Children can take a surprising amount of pain – stubborn little items. But, they scream even prettier than the petrified. And they just let rip. And that’s real music.”
Carly wrinkled her nose as she picked at the wrapping of the chocolate bar and broke a section off. It was as cold as ice and was so far past its best before date that it tasted like cardboard. She stared at a silent Mika for a few seconds, wondering if he was remembering this too, and then returned her attention to Robyn’s story. She could turn anything into an intriguing tale of wonder and awe and, even though they more or less always ended in death, Carly was morbidly fascinated. “So, what happened?”
“They came to me because I was nice and kind. Children have no sense of danger or risk assessment – how many times have they been told not to go off with strangers? Brought them back home and chained them up. Told them horrible things. Did unforgivably nasty –“ a smile stole across her pretty face and it was clear that she didn’t think they were cruel in the least “- things to them. Children are so ripe and juicy. They just bleed and bleed and scream and cry and bleed some more. Until they die – and then the fun’s over.”
“You’re a very sick individual, you know that?”
Robyn knew exactly that. And what, exactly, was wrong with having a little fun while keeping yourself alive? “I just know how to have a good time.” At least she was not wasting hundreds of lives for no real reason at all. For this would never work.
Mika did not look up but spoke in a voice heavy with, what probably passed for, regret. “Dozens of them. Dozens of young lives destroyed.”
“Did you kill them all?”
“No. Not all of them – but as good as. Some we tortured horribly, emotionally scared them for life. We showed no mercy whatsoever. Then we set them free and they ran scared – afraid to tell people what was wrong because they would get labelled as mentally deficient. We ruined them.”
Carly thought she detected the merest hint of pleasure in his voice, maybe remembering how good he had felt. But his eyes remained dark and downcast, seeming shadier than before, as if he were only making a show of enjoyment for Robyn. “You do it all for her, don’t you?”
“She’s everything to me. She showed me the real light, guided me on my path. I love her.” He laid a hand on Robyn’s shoulder but she did not respond to his touch, did not even look at him, busy waging an internal war on the night world that threatened to claim her for good.
“No, I have to stay here. For the mission.” She went on with her monologue but they paid no attention to her.
“She showed me what it meant to be… other than human. A survivor. She taught me everything I’ll ever know.”
Carly honestly believed that the couple loved each other deeply, and knew that they would do anything for one another. “It’s kind of beautiful. In a way.” It was very weird and all kinds of twisted but Carly was not one to argue when it came to matters of the heart.
“She killed me,” Mika said. “And that’s why I loved her at first. Just an obsession, then love because she had given me the greatest gift in all the world. Now, I don’t think I could go on without her.”
“What if one of you died alone? Would you carry on – surviving?”
“After the apocalypse, there will be no survivors.” He raised his eyes from the table top and slid his hand down Robyn’s arm to clasp his hand over hers. “And we’ll be together.”
THIRTEEN
“What?”
Robyn snapped her head back around to him and bit her lip out of habit.
“It’s just a theory,” Mika muttered in defence. “I think that’s how it happens. You try to bring about a
new beginning but you have to let the world end first. Then we have to start from scratch. I’m not sure what will happen but that sounds logical.”
Robyn stared at him – unnerving him with her wide, clueless gaze again. “Does logic have any place in the plan?”
Carly shook her head, doubtfully – she didn’t think so. “There’ll be nothing left. Nothing to build up from.”
“What’s to say that there won’t be the same kind of people in the New World? The kind of people that are never satisfied with what they have, who don’t realise how good they have things? Compared to the good old bad days. We have no way of knowing for certain that they won’t make the same mistakes.”
“But you’ll be together.” Carly sighed heavily, dejected every hope of salvation quickly fading away. “And that’s all you care about, isn’t it? As long as you’re together, nothing else matters. The rest of the world can go and screw up big time as long as it doesn’t affect you two.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She screwed up her stale chocolate wrapper and threw it towards the metal sink. It went in and Carly smiled at this small success.
“No. We don’t want anyone else to die or anything to happen.”
Mika stared at the woman he loved, glad that he wasn’t on his own here. Now, at last, she seemed to be grasping the importance of stopping this thing or, more accurately, reversing the whole thing. “Because it’s not right.”
“I can feel it in me – this is all wrong. None of this should be happening. Not how things were meant to be. It’s up to us to stop it, change it.”
“We told you before, Carly. We like this place and all the people in it. It’s home.”
“Home? What do you guys know about home? You don’t live anywhere or belong anywhere. You’re like parasites – you inhabit places, you infest them.”
Mika had taken hundreds of homes with Robyn – he knew exactly what a home felt like… what a home should feel like. Home was where you could be true to yourself and not have to hide behind some façade. Home was where you were surrounded by love and tolerance, and not be persecuted for being deemed what others deemed to be a monster. But instead of saying any of this, Mika sat in quiet contemplation, for the first time really seeing that he could no longer call this place home. Maybe he was a parasite – hated and feared the world over. But Robyn was right, as usual, it was their responsibility to end this. Then they might be able to call this place home again. Might be…
“You upset him,” Robyn accused. “This was our home. We belonged here.”
Carly found it hard to believe that the couple could belong here- psychopathic killers on the loose?
“We could go to the most wonderful places – we went on cruises, trips, lavish holiday – and no-one thought twice about us. Two young lovers on an illicit adventure. Anywhere we chose and the place could be ours – anywhere and everywhere was our home.”
“So, what happened? What went wrong?”
“She happened. She went wrong,” Robyn spat.
“She had nothing to do with it.” Mika spoke up, sounding very far away. “She just knew we weren’t going to be on top forever. There are things bigger than us, things we cannot control.”
“We’re talking about something else now. I wanna hear why this isn’t home for you any more.”
“Yes – home. Home was anywhere we wanted. We belonged here, before anyone else did. This has always been home – and it always will be.”
“What do you mean… before anyone else did?” Carly’s fingers and toes were numb with cold and she willed her blood to start circulating. She ignored it and listened for the answer to her question.
“We’re the Old Ones,” Mika told her. “For a time, we were The Forgotten but people hadn’t forgotten – just ignored the unsavoury elements of society. This does have something to do with home,” he blurted, knowing what her next question was going to be. “They say that there isn’t room for us in the New World. The New World will implode without us to…”
“Mix things up a bit?” Carly suggested. “Nowhere can be home without a bit of controversy?”
Robyn was inwardly seething at her constant questioning, and her anger was amplified by the relative calmness of Mika, who did not appear to be bothered by her. Why did this girl ask so many questions? Couldn’t she just accept that some things did not have reasoning behind them – they just were. Some things could not be explained.
“Where’s that print-out?”
“On the mattress. Why?”
“I was thinking. I’m not sure but I get the feeling that we’re missing something. Something blatantly obvious but we didn’t notice it.”
“Like what?”
“I said I don’t know, I might be totally off the mark but…” Carly descended into thoughtful silence. There had to be something, there just had to be. They always missed one vital detail in the movies. And this situation was so far removed from the norms of reality that it could well be a movie – except that it wasn’t. Every nightmarish second of this was terrifyingly real, and would leave a stain that would never fade.
“What are we supposed to do now?”
“Wait there.” Mika disappeared from the room and came back a moment later with the paper Carly wanted. He slid it onto the table but thumped his fist down on top of it before she could open it. “They should have known that this would happen before they started any of this. They should have researched previous attempts at creating bliss.”
“I think they did. Not researched other attempts or anything – how far back does this date?”
“Thousands of years.” Robyn picked up Mika’s abandoned glass and took a sip. It was warm, well room temperature anyway, and sweet to her palette. “People have been trying to annihilate each other since the dawn of time. Some have been trying to stop it for almost as long. But war is a concept much older than us – one that must never end. War, disagreement, jihad – the world would be nothing without it.”
“So, this brave new world will collapse in on itself faster than this one because there’ll be no-one to make trouble.” Carly liked to make things simple; clarify each point along the way, so she didn’t get anything wrong. Mistakes could be fatal – she knew that now. Trusting people could be just as deadly. Good or bad.
“Collapse.” Robyn liked the sound of that – it reminded her of her deck of cards folding in on itself as she pick one from the bottom, or how people just fell to the ground after she had fed from them. Destruction and devastation was fun, but not like this. Not done for these reasons. But, there was something there… “Fall. Cave in. Nice words.”
“What?” Mika looked up as though he had just come out of a daydream. He had not, of course, but the last few words had barely registered with him. “Did you say something?”
“Nothing you haven’t already heard.” Carly plastered a thin smile on her face. “Has anyone ever tried this before? Surely that would’ve been recorded alongside these these spells? Which seem more like hidden curses than charms.”
“Maybe they were recorded but they didn’t care.” Light was pouring through the high window and his skin started to tingle. It reminded him how close he was to the second thing he feared; how easy it had been for him to accept this gift, how much easier it could be taken away from him. It was a good feeling. “They thought things would be different this time around; that the human race had evolved far enough for them to be able to cope with it.”
“But, they can’t – because we haven’t really evolved.”
“Oh, you’ve changed… just not as much as they think you have. You still hate just as much, love just as much, fear anything that’s different. You can just hide it better.”
“Is that one of their reasons for doing this? Because they’re scared of these monsters being diverse? To put it nicely.”
“Oh, yes.” Robyn’s hair
glowed and shone in the light. “They are scare of us. Being different. Shoots fear into the hearts of soldiers.”
“When I was at school,” began Carly, thrilled that she could tell a fitting story instead of listening. “I was dyslexic. Which is why I started in computers, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, it became playground gossip when I was about thirteen and I got bullied horribly for being different. For ages I thought that there was something wrong with me, but then it hit me. They weren’t picking on me because I was different, but ‘cos I wasn’t the same as them. I took more tolerance and brainpower than they probably had to spare.”
Mika cleared his throat, for no reason other than to get her attention. “A very heart-warming story but, does this fit into our puzzle?”
“Yeah. If them kids had taken the time to understand me they wouldn’t have alienated me and made me feel bad. They were scared of me because I was new and different.”
“Dates back to the 60s,” said Robyn. “Keeping the purebloods away from the tainted.” That did not make sense. Was she a pureblood or not? She felt pretty pure, but deep in the pit of her stomach, she knew that she was doomed to be sent to Hell with the tainted.
“Segregation. Extremist ethnic cleansing.”
“Uh, ethnic cleansing is pretty extreme anyway,” Carly pointed out, thinking of the cases splashed of the internet news sites. Mika must have seen it in his time. Well, he was sort of part of it – depending on which way you looked at it.
“Indiscriminately separating the good from the bad. The clean from the dirtied.” That was discrimination, he knew, but said nothing. They didn’t seem to realise that there were differing degrees of good and bad; that sometimes the lines blurred; that there were, on occasion, overlaps. “Those in the good category live the high life and get all the rewards, while the bad, the dregs of society, get nothing but punishment.”
“But,” objected Carly, “I thought you said that no-one’ll be alive long enough for any of this to happen.”
“It’s already happening as we speak,” said Robyn, suddenly, snapping back into reality. “Right now. The ones who gave into this primeval, Neanderthal fury are marked for Hell. And the people who have shown the restraint and strength to fight it are marked for the New World.”