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  The elderly man closed the door behind them and left the three men to their private business. Number 3 took the vacant chair, which groaned beneath his weight. He regarded the other two middle-aged men, both nursing a glass of Scotch. Both had the same shiny, scarlet eyes where the whites should have been as himself.

  The gentleman at the desk had lank, grey hair and was clean shaven. The other gentleman to number 3’s right had a moustache and short, thick black hair. He nodded in greeting to number 3.

  ‘Care to join us, number 3?’ the man seated behind the desk, known only as number 1, asked.

  Number 3 nodded with assent.

  Number 1 poured a short glass from the bottle. ‘Number 2 and I have some acceptable news we’d like to share with you. But first, indulge us by giving details of how the prince of darkness is doing. Have you seen him with your own eyes yet?’

  Number 3 accepted the glass and took a thirsty sip. Then he rested the glass in his lap. ‘I haven’t caught sight of the little one as of yet. The father is alarmed of my constant presence. He made reference to the weather upon seeing me the first time. The second was when I thought all the skin on his face would fall off when he saw me standing, watching him through the window several hours later.’

  Number 1 nodded approval. ‘The chosen one’s father died in an automobile accident a week ago in the fog. The mother is frail, breakable. She can be destroyed. The Reaper has shown us the way, but we must enforce its wishes. Number 2 is set to go and seek an opportunity while the chosen one is still in his mother’s womb. But we must be careful. This is paramount, above everything else. Is that understood?’

  Number 2 and number 3 nodded in unison.

  Shifting uncomfortably, Number 3 pulled the tail end of his raincoat off the seat and let it fall over the arms, dripping. ‘What about the meteorite shower? Isn’t that the first, unequivocal sign of the new age? If we aren’t successful killing the mother and child won’t the meteorites take care of that for us?’

  Number 2 silently agreed and turned his attention from Number 3 to Number 1, awaiting the response.

  ‘The meteors have already been detected as we know by an amateur astronomer somewhere in the States. Unforeseen incidents have occurred which buy us time. But soon the Earth all over will feel the wrath of global devastation. Countries will be wiped out. Others, like this old nation will be destroyed but not completely.

  ‘Whether we deal with the mother and the chosen one now or during the aftermath is not paramount. What is vital is that it’s done. And even if it’s not, I ask you two fine gentlemen, what will a man born of this world do when he realises his destiny and decides to confront Death?’

  The uplifting pep talk filled with confidence and bravado assured number 2 and number 3, for their lips curved upwards in mischievous smiles.

  Ordinarily, the three men if observed would have without doubt been considered as mad members of a sinister cult, nothing more. However, in spite of their bleak surroundings and implausible talk that a sane person would have instantly described as gibberish, the men knew of things no other human could possibly know, unless they were clairvoyant.

  It was then that all men remembered the fable depicted to them in their dreams on the eve of June 6; the dream that wasn’t really a dream but a message from Death. Even upon waking, all three men were undeterred by finding themselves in their beds in their homes.

  Death had approached them in the glorious starlight on an endless vista on a phosphorescent white horse galloping across flat terrain. The Grim Reaper appeared in all its soul-trembling splendour, but came to them not to take their souls across the sea of time into another realm to have their eternal fate decided. It came to a halt before each of them in their separate visions and spoke without speaking and attempted to make each of them wiser than previously.

  Number 3 could still envision the fable in his mind’s eye the way a movie connoisseur could bring to mind and recite a famous scene from their favourite film.

  In the fable three men of no relation travelled across time to the sea of Hades to find their passing over thwarted by the absence of a bridge or footpath to the other side. Vexed by this impediment, the three men cast their gazes into the velvety waters that mirrored their reflections with intricate accuracy. In the near distance to where they sought refuge, the men noticed a precipice of red, crumbling stone. They decided to swim in the waters to the boulders to see how far away they were from reaching their destination.

  However, as they proceeded to plunge themselves into the opaque waters, the same towering figure materialised on the bank, facing the three men, slowly twirling the long-handled scythe that twinkled in the moonlight.

  Startled and disturbed by the sudden appearance of the Grim Reaper, the three men ceased movement and retreated. Death asked them why it had travelled across time to the next realm and what they intended to achieve if it permitted them to cross and at first they remained quiet. The first one said he sought the most beautiful, curvaceous and sultry women to fornicate with and give him the most amazing orgasms for ever and ever. The Reaper had heard this prayer of lust and desire for so long that he could smell it and sense it long before the individual opened their mouths. It permitted the man to sink into the depths and swim for the crag.

  Then it faced the second man who spoke of desires to be a prominent figure in the world and to be rich and successful; to be cherished all over for his amazing talent. The Reaper wasn’t the slightest bit surprised by this desire, for it could not think of the number of times it’d been asked to bestow this to an unsavoury mortal. Again it permitted the man to sink into the now rippling depths of black sea and swim industriously for the crag.

  When it turned to face the third man, the Reaper could not predict the man’s desires like he could his acquaintances. The man standing before him looked on in a placid manner that couldn’t be deciphered by Death. For the man showed no desire or fear, and that unsettled the Reaper. No man before it had ever been without a trace of fear, save this man.

  The Reaper finally asked the unassuming man what he desired upon crossing the black sea and returned to Earth. The third man said he wanted to serve the Reaper for one time, and one time only, then to be permitted across the black sea, past the crag and to wherever souls of the dead went to be judged.

  Astonished at this request, the Reaper agreed, eyeing the third man in awe. Then rather than watch the third man swim across the black see to the crag in the distance, the Reaper revealed a golden footbridge that had been invisible to all three men until now. It pointed with its long, skeletal index finger towards the bridge and watched as the third man crossed the black sea far quicker than the two men before him.

  The Reaper watched the man as he crossed the golden footbridge with undeniable respect and admiration.

  Upon awakening that morning, number 3 realised then he was no longer an ordinary man – but a man with extraordinary gifts…

  He wasn’t sure how he knew this. It was like going to sleep on a Sunday night knowing the following day would be a Monday. However, it was a lot more complicated than that. The order of days was set in stone. The transformation he felt was something he couldn’t convince anyone of (not that he had any desire to share this knowledge). He couldn’t begin to articulate it other than to say he felt a presence of something invisible but tangible nonetheless. No strange voices in his head whispered to him, as though he suffered with schizophrenia. Nothing like that which could be explained by a psychiatrist. Yet what he did now he did for a greater cause.

  As he sat up in bed the man, born Michael Scott Thompson, scanned the bedroom, disorientated. The body that had grown weathered and weary as he approached middle-age gave him no difficulty this morning. Normally, upon awakening, Michael would wince at the dull ache in his lower back. His fingers and elbows would click audibly. Bringing himself to full consciousness took a lot of exertion. Every morning his eyelids threatened to close and sleep invited him to its enticing comforts.
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  However, this morning his heart beat with vigour. Electricity surged through his veins. No bones clicked. No dull aches all over. His body had rested plenty. When he pulled the quilt off him and stood, he sighed in pleasure, stretching, feeling the muscles flex taut.

  Perplexed by this alacrity he’d not experienced since his youth, Michael ventured into the bathroom, showered, shaved and brushed his teeth. After dressing and fixing himself breakfast, consisting of a banana, apple and a pint glass of orange juice, Michael closed the front door behind him, stepping outside.

  The visionary dream was still etched clearly in his mind’s eye. Michael knew then that his sudden burst of energy and rejuvenated strength had been bequeathed to him from the Grim Reaper.

  During the story depicted in his slumber, Michael had learned the best way to face death was to do a deed for the Grim Reaper in return for his life and vivacity.

  A compulsion engineered by intuition guided his path that morning.

  He strolled into the city as opposed to catching a bus or hailing a cab. The roads were bustling with heavy traffic. The pavements were coming to life with working class folks and students. Michael ignored them all. And they, sensing that there was something immoral about him, gave him a wide berth.

  It came to Michael then all at once what was so different about him. His aura had altered from that of a weary, middle-aged man, enduring the first effects of being a mortal that could no longer be ignored, to something alien.

  A lady walking her son to school with her poodle trailing a step behind sensed his presence as he overtook them on the pavement. She narrowed her eyes at him as he strode past, nearly trampling over her faithful pet.

  ‘Watch it!’ she hissed.

  The anger written over her face collapsed when their eyes met, replaced with a resounding fear. She held her son back and cuddled her poodle to her bosom, leaning against the black wrought-iron fencing.

  Michael turned away and continued on his way, hearing the frightened woman letting out a whoosh of breath. She had some nerve hogging the entire pavement for herself and her family. All he wanted to do was to get past as she was moving at a lethargic pace. Yet when she saw him a few feet apart she looked like she’d seen the face of the hooded figure he saw last night.

  Unperturbed, Michael continued to the nearest graveyard. The entrance gate was open. He ambled inside, scanning the headstones. Some of the headstones were basic concrete, others were marble and erect. It didn’t matter, though. Death didn’t care about wealth, attractiveness or popularity. Death was final.

  For no reason in particular, Michael lowered himself on the nearest bench beneath the boughs of an oak. Leaves rustled in the breeze, sounding to Michael like the hissing of a thousand rattlesnakes.

  The presence that had guided him here revealed nothing.

  Then ten minutes later, a man wearing a black outdoor jacket, trousers and polished shoes so shiny they could have been used as makeshift mirrors, came into Michael’s peripheral vision from the other side of the cemetery. He was roughly the same age as Michael.

  When the stranger nodded, Michael reciprocated. Then the man headed down the gravel path towards him. Michael watched, mesmerised by what would have appeared a mundane happening to anyone passing by, sensing he and the stranger had something in common.

  Footfalls to his right made him snap his head in that direction and Michael watched another middle-aged man in an all-black jogging outfit, slow at the entrance and gave a fleeting glance to Michael and the man walking from the other side of the cemetery. He too nodded at Michael. Again, Michael reciprocated the gesture and observed the two men nearing the bench he occupied.

  The man who’d appeared at the far end of the cemetery eyed both men curiously. ‘Did you two have the dream of the Grim Reaper offering the three men their deepest desires last night?’ His voice was husky, similar to that of legendary Hollywood actor, Al Pacino.

  Simultaneously, Michael and the other man said, ‘Yes.’

  Michael assumed the information would have startled him. Instead it comforted him to know he wasn’t alone. He sensed the other two men felt the same. Then he asked, inadvertently at the same time as the other two men, ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’

  A profound silence fell, broken only by the unseen serpents hissing in the treetops.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Michael said.

  The man from the far end of the cemetery said, ‘You both have blood red eyes where the whites ought to be. I’m guessing mine are the same. Yes?’

  The last of the three men nodded an affirmative.

  The two men sat down on either side of Michael and faced the cemetery. They decided after being reluctant to offer their names to each other that they would call themselves Number 1, 2 and 3. Names weren’t important anyway.

  ‘Old man Sacasa will permit us to use a back room to an abandoned nightclub,’ Number 1 said. He gave Michael and the other man the address. ‘It’ll be far more suitable for our task than rendezvousing here. For one thing it is unethical and I don’t think it’d be wise for us to be climbing spiked fences after closing time.’

  The three did not exchange addresses, telephone numbers or emails. The address they were given was where they’d meet every day. ‘Just like going to work,’ Number 1 said. ‘And I hope I need not remind you that nothing that is discussed between us is to ever be shared with the outside world. We have been chosen to do an important deed. The child that will follow the Grim Reaper is to be protected. The child born to be their saviour must be destroyed. If you speak of this to anyone outside of the sect they will not believe you and the Reaper will make you scream for all eternity. So, please. Use discretion at all times.’

  That had been how the three had formed their cult.

  And the three feared the Grim Reaper exceedingly, to the extent that they would never consider repudiation.

  10.

  IT WAS TWO WEEKS after Aida Goldsmith had reported her son, Frank, as missing when a resident of Brecon, Wales, reported having seen the abandoned Ford Mondeo parked in a lay-by for more than a week now in the exact same position. Realising something was amiss the citizen informed the local police who investigated.

  Until the discovery of the abandoned vehicle, police had filed Frank’s disappearance with all the other “Missing Persons” unsolved cases. As Frank was an adult his disappearance – unlike that of a child’s – wasn’t a main priority. Thousands of men and women all over the country upped and left their mundane lives and chose to disappear. One constable assumed that Frank had got tired and frustrated with his nagging, overbearing mother and gone AWOL. Strange as it sounded to people who lived contentedly, it wasn’t abnormal. Constant pressure and stress induced crazy reactions.

  Still, a female PCSO did assist Aida in putting up flyers around the local village and queried Roland’s disappearance with some of his friends at the pool hall. They even scanned the mountains for any evidence but found nothing atypical, save lingering fog concealing the summit.

  Nothing.

  Ostensibly, Roland had found the end of the world and didn’t stop…

  Aida was left in her home with a hollow emptiness. Her emotions as baffled as she, neither knowing whether to remain optimistic or to start contemplating grieving the loss of her only child.

  She sat in her Laz-Y-Boy chair with the TV on. Anyone passing by and who happened to glance through the living room window would see nothing out of the ordinary. However, if they looked closer they’d see the impassive stare and the absence of light from the green-brown eyes shrunken back into the wrinkly flesh of a mother as lost as her son.

  *

  Swathed in the swirling tendrils of unnatural fog, a shape of a man stood at the centre of the amphitheatre at the summit of the Brecon Beacons. However, where he stood now was as far away from Earth as the furthest galaxy. He stood with eyes that had no colour for the whites had consumed the irises and the pupils.

  The figure of a man who was onc
e known as Roland Goldsmith to his colleagues at the local council department and his friends at the Legion pool hall and to his doting, dependent mother, had departed. Now the cue-ball eyes rolled like marbles in his head. A green phosphorescent glow pulsed rhythmically, pushing the fog up and out of the confines of the amphitheatre.

  The wind caught the fog and surged forth with alacrity across the land. No peace now or again settled in this country or any other. Roland was one of many around the globe in each nation chosen to release the fog from the somewhere beneath the foundations where darkness the world had never known existed.

  Bouncing on his tiptoes the body that had once belonged to a benevolent, loving man, danced to and fro in the fog, embracing the light, urging onwards to wreak havoc on those who least expected it.

  Having danced in the glow of green light and breathed in its vapours, Roland’s rosy-cheek complexion had now transformed into an ashen, fleshless face glowing from within from the same pulsating beacon. His appearance was that of a human torch, illuminating the night, like a candle in the wind.

  Had Aida been present to witness this ungodly vision, she would have fallen into the clutches of madness herself. The sight was so surreal it couldn’t possibly be real. Her son never danced; never shone brightly, and had the same green-brown eyes that expressed a profound love for a life of peace.

  Then as though instantly overcome with bone-weary exhaustion Roland – or whatever now resided in his mortal remains – collapsed to the earthen floor in an entangled heap. For two whole weeks, every sunset the fissure in the ground where the monolith had sunk issued swirls of fog, and the beacon amidst it shone, urging it forth. Now the last tendrils of fog escaped the fissure and were whisked away by the shrill wind down through the valley, invisible to the naked eye.

  Roland’s eyelids closed over, and had Aida only seen him now, she would have been forgiven for believing her son was sleeping, having found peace.