Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) (17 page)

             
“You didn’t help me and none of your fucking friends helped me.” He threw his arm down angrily as he spoke. “I’m sick of not having a clue what’s going on, I’m sick of trying and failing to find things out for myself.” He was losing his voice, the day and the disbelief taking it out of him. “This is it. You tell me now or I quit. You can take this job and stick it--”

             
Michael stopped abruptly. He wasn’t in the processing room anymore. His grating throat caught a spittle of dried phlegm which he had a hard time trying to force back down as he looked around in horror.

             
The room was dark, but of a different intensity. Nothing could penetrate the blackness. Michael couldn’t see his own hand as he lifted it, trembling slightly, in front of his face. He could see an enormous desk in front of him though, eclipsing him. The solid structure looked like a fortress and he was an enemy at the meagre gates.

             
Azrael sat behind the desk, his size and his stature fitting perfectly behind it. His eyes bore down on Michael, glittering like fiery orbs in the blackness.

             
He was in the Angel of Death’s office. He had never been there before, but he knew it. He felt it.

             
“Shit,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean it.”

             
Azrael ignored the apology. “The weapons and the technology, including the clones, come from a former employee,” he explained. “We have been studying him for some time, but he has ways of remaining under our radar. He knows how we operate.”

             
It was hard to feel at ease in such a room but Michael softened under the realisation that he wasn’t going to lose his job or his immortality. “Was he a reaper?” he asked.

             
“No,” Azrael said brusquely.

             
Michael decided not to pursue that line of enquiry; he doubted it would get him anything other than brisk negatives.

             
“I thought there was no way out of here, how did he just
stop working
?” he asked.

             
“He found a way.”

             
“Can’t you drag him back?”

             
“He is a very powerful man.”

             
Michael forgot his station again, “You’re the fucking Angel of Death,” he reminded him. “How powerful can he possibly be?”

             
Azrael drummed his fingers on the desk, the heavy thuds like shrapnel embedding into wood. “Above ground he is more powerful than I,” he admitted with great reluctance. “He, like you and I, is also immortal.”

             
Michael looked perplexed. “I don’t get it,” he admitted.

             
“And I can’t explain it.”             

             
Michael sighed “Back to square one then.”

             
Azrael grinned; he opened his palms in an expressive manner. “I sense you’re happier with this conclusion though?”

             
“For some reason, yes.” Michael agreed. “And to be honest with you, I don’t give a shit what you do with this guy. I did my part and that’s that.”

             
Azrael looked impressed and respectful of Michael’s honesty.

             
“Now,” Michael said, looking around unsurely. “How do I get out of here?”

****

              There was a storm of blackness inside a room that bore One, Two and the prospect of many more equally combative, submissive and apathetic vessels. The vats were taken apart by unseen, uncaring hands; stripped with great rapidity before any watching eyes could complain.

             
The machines and the wires followed. A wind of destruction tore through the room, stripping it of its priceless equipment like a superhuman team of removal men.

             
The man that had programmed the machine, the closest thing that One and Two had to a father, watched the room from his office: peering through the large glass window with little emotion showing on his weather-beaten face.

             
The room was black and empty in moments. Changed from a cacophony of electronics, noises and awe-inspiring expense, to nothing. Just a blank space.

             
Dressed in overalls, a pair of spectacles hooked over his ears and tipped up to rest on the top of his head, a placid man casually chewed gum and recited from a clipboard he held in his hands, ticking off as he went.

             
“Cloning vats destroyed. Souls diverted. Suspicious equipment noted or collected. Money transferred. Privileges revoked--”

             
The older man watched this indifferent display with a rueful scorn. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t object. When the checklist was completed and the man disappeared, he slumped down behind his desk and glanced around the empty office. Even the electricity had been temporally cut, the fading light of the day was now the only thing keeping the emptied area that had held life, and promise of more, from descending into complete blackness.

             
He slumped his head into his hands and sighed into his palms, breathing in his own despair. The door to his office opened, someone entered.

             
“The file you requested sir,” the incomer spoke and then slowly and silently departed, closing the door gently behind them, guiding the lock into place with the faintest of clicks.

             
He lifted his head and looked down at the file on his desk. A thick manila folder which concealed an assortment of pictures and papers, all neatly stacked in one thick ream.

             
The sight brought a smile to his face. He shifted out of his melancholy with some renewed hope; ambition found in the throes of vengeance. He flipped open the folder, checked the first sheet: a reaping license, photocopied. The second: a work sheet. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth: a biography. The seventh was a picture; he put the others to one side and held onto the picture. He stared at it intensely, his lips curling into an increasingly sinister grimace.

             
“You have just made a very powerful enemy,” he told the portrait of Michael Holland.

             
He scrunched the picture into a ball, revelling in its destruction, doing to it what Michael had done to everything he had worked on over the last few years.

             
One photograph didn’t matter, he had plenty, and he wasn’t going to forget that face. He threw the scrunched-up ball across the room, watching it bounce off the far wall and land anticlimactically next to the wastepaper bin.

             
He cursed and he sprayed a volley of spittle across his own desk, but he was already feeling better. He had a purpose now, he had a mission: he was going to kill Michael Holland.

Part Three

              A spiral of cigar smoke snaked to the ceiling like a dancing cobra rising from its woven basket. It rose through the thickened air and dispersed against the yellowed paint, where a thin layer of grease had accumulated through years of casual neglect, spreading a cloud along the flattened surface.

             
The smoker coughed a watery cough, bringing a troublesome glob to his throat before sending it back down with a squeamish swallow. He placed the cigar into a nearby ashtray; wiped his mouth with the hairy back of a dirty hand; poked a finger into his nose, inspected the contents and then wiped them on his faded blue jeans.

             
He held the sports section of a national newspaper in his left hand, folded into a neat handheld scrunch and held off to one side. In his right hand he retrieved a greasy bacon sandwich from the plate in front of him and took a noisy bite without removing his eyes from the latest failures of the England football team.

             
Michael Holland sat on the other side of the diner, watching the hungry reader through tired eyes. It was early, he had been awake less than thirty minutes and along with his cup of coffee and slice of stale ginger cake, death was being served up for breakfast.

             
He watched the man take another large bite. A pool of grease infused with tomato sauce leaked out of the bread like blood from a gunshot wound. It ran a rivulet down his stubbled chin, heading towards his flabby neck before being wiped away by a grubby finger.

             
Michael felt sick. He’d had a few drinks the night before and had only just managed to settle his troublesome stomach. He didn’t mind dealing with death so early, but having to watch fat people eat and smoke their way to an early grave was unsettling.

             
“Is everything okay?”

             
Michael, slightly startled at the voice, quickly turned. A petite brunette waitress was standing over his table, a broad smile on her delicate face.

             
At the sight of her Michael’s face lit up. There was something so endearing and relaxing in her smile, something so sweet about the pinprick dimples on her cheek; so mesmerising in her green eyes, which reflected the light from the bright morning over Michael’s shoulder.

             
He had seen her in the back when he gave his order to a dole-faced woman with a pencil behind her ear and a stick up her arse. He heard her humming softly as she cooked up the breakfast currently clogging the arteries of the man opposite. He caught her smile then, thought he saw something there -- her eyes had lingered longer than simple customer curiosity required.

             
“Everything is fine,” Michael replied softly, holding eye contact as he described each syllable.

             
She beamed a wider smile, if that was possible. “If you need anything,” she trailed off, hooking a thumb over her shoulder towards the kitchen.

             
Michael nodded. She left a smile with him and then turned, heading straight back into the kitchen without acknowledging the other customer. Michael felt singled out, he felt sure there was a spark there. He watched her go; watched her walk. She made it to the kitchen and then spun on her heels, placing a supporting hand on the doorway as she shot a look over her shoulder, her eyes instantly meeting his. She smiled again, looked a little sheepish and then quickly turned away.

             
Michael turned back to the man eating the bacon sandwich. He was almost finished -- not paying attention to his food, too intent on reading his paper. Moistened crumbs stuck to his lips, grease pinned the stubble to his chin. He was taking bigger and bigger bites as he neared the end of the large bread bun, chewing less and less.

             
Michael shook his head in distaste and turned away. He could see the smiling brunette in the kitchen. Her slim body and petite face in profile as she prepped some vegetables. Her hips moved gently to the swing of a song in her head, her hand took the rhythm of her hips as it diced melodious pieces of carrot.

             
There was a time when he wouldn’t have faltered at her smile, wouldn’t have lingered on her interests or her mild flirting. Those times were gone, had been gone for a while now.

             
Death hadn’t necessarily changed him, he had been reborn with the same sex drive as when he had died, but the events following his death had subdued him somewhat. He wasn’t the same man anymore and didn’t look at women in the same way.

             
He pulled out his timer and glanced sombrely at the screen. He gave it a gentle, understanding nod and stuffed it back into his pocket. He looked at the fat man again. He was shovelling the last piece of his sandwich into his mouth, cramming every inch of greasy bacon into the cavernous orifice. His cheeks bulged like a hibernating hamster when he finished, there was so much food crammed inside that his greased lips could barely meet.

             
He chewed. Crumbs spilled out of his mouth, over his clothes, onto the floor and the table. The food went down but seemed to lodge. A look of alarm spread over his face and for the first time he took his eyes off the newspaper.

             
Michael stood up, prepared. He straightened his jacket, double checked his watch, leaned against the table and waited, watching.

             
The man held a hand to his chest. He looked anxious, worried. He coughed, sputtered. Shrapnel of soaked bread flew across the room. He coughed again, began to slam the heel of his hand against his chest.