3.00PM, 14
th
September 2015, Hotel Suite, Hilton Hotel, Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, London
“The Lord is most displeased with you, Ahab. He trembles with disbelief at your incompetence.
H
” Brother Abraham sat by the window, watching as planes came and went through the sky, catching an occasional glimpse of his reflection in the glass. Inside, he was burning with rage. He did not look at the man who his fury was aimed at, and he showed no external signs of his anger. But the anger was there, and it was only by power of will that he did not let the mask slip.
“I am sorry, Brother Abraham,” Ahab said, a slender man in his forties, prostrate on his knees. “I thought I was doing the Lord’s will.” Abraham closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his elderly nose. Such audacity.
“The Lord Our God would not send sheep to kill a rabid wolf. Now we have two brethren dead, Brother Eli sat in the bowels of Satan himself, and another cowering before me trying to repent his most egregious error. Whatever possessed you to think that you could kill this man?” Abraham looked away from the window and scanned the room, looking at the three other men who stood silently behind Ahab. He looked each in the eye, seeing the devotion and the selflessness there. These men he could trust unquestioningly. Each of them he knew would die for him without a second thought. “You were only supposed to follow the man, using the drone the Lord provided you.”
“Croft is a threat; I saw a chance to eliminate that threat,” Ahab said defensively. His chest almost puffed up with pride when he said it.
“Indeed, he is a threat, more so now thanks to your stupidity. You thought you could kill him, using guns … bought off the internet. The man you tried to end is a trained killer, a warrior of countless wars. You …” Abraham held his hands up in exasperation, “you were a fucking accountant until you found the true faith. But we are where we are, and our enemy will undoubtedly redouble his efforts now. You have given the Wolf a taste of the flesh he craves.” Abraham shook his head in frustration. The man before him was pious, that much was true. But he was incompetent like many of the Lord’s followers. Still, you had to take what the Lord gave you. One had to trust that you followed the true path. “Fortunately, we are mere days away from the cleansing. The world will see the penalty for their wickedness, and they will know the purity and the vengeance of the Lord Our God. But you, my friend,” Abraham nodded to one of his followers, “you will be spared any more toil in the field of the Lord.” Abraham reached down from where he sat and took Ahab’s face in his hands. “I release you from your penance, and bless you to eternal bliss.” He released the cowering figure. Ahab’s face showed shock realisation, and then the garrotte passed over his eyes and tightened onto his neck. As the man bucked and fought, Abraham stood and walked into the bathroom. Such unpleasantness on such a beautiful day was distressing but necessary. Washing his bearded face, the 72 year old looked at his wrinkled reflection in the mirror.
“How many more years will your servant have to do thy bidding, oh Lord?” he whispered under his breath. “How many more years before you gather me up to be by your side?” Abraham grabbed a towel hanging by the side of the sink and dried himself. Noticing that the sounds of struggle next door had ended, he discarded it and walked back into the bedroom.
“Someone dispose of that,” he said pointing at the now dead Ahab. “And pack my bags. I have a plane to catch.” Yes, it was time he left the Devil’s playground. Fifteen hours from now, he would be safely back home in America, safe to continue the Lord’s work if his message went unheeded. So much to do, so many sinners to free from their worldly bondage, so many converts to welcome. He turned to the man who had killed the foolish Ahab. “Did you do what I asked of you?”
“Yes, Brother. We have ensured the apartments where they stayed have all been sterilised by the Lord’s fire. There will be no trace of them left; it will take weeks for our enemies to find their identities … So long as Eli doesn’t talk.”
“Don’t worry,” Abraham said with a smile, “Eli will be dead before the day is over. The man is a true believer.” Abraham sat back down as his men busied themselves with the Lord’s work. Soon, 7 billion souls would witness the truth about the world, and the Lord would weep in the heavens at the manifestation of his justice.
3.30PM 14
th
September 2015, Thames House, Millbank, London
Brother Eli held his hands over his ears and tried to keep out the relentless noise. When he had come to, he had been strapped down unable to move and hooded. There was white noise filling his ears, and he suspected from the motion that he was in a helicopter. A moment of panic filled him as he realised he was in the hands of the enemy. It was not panic regarding what would become of him – no, he had already accepted that he was already dead. His concern was aimed at what he might reveal about the Lord’s vengeance. Sooner or later, he would break. If not from the psychological torture, then from the drugs that would inevitably be placed into his system. Brother Abraham had told them all well how the Devil’s foot soldiers would look to use the imperfection of their own bodies against them. And now he was here, amongst them, captive to the agents of evil.
Now he was in a bright room, the lights so bright he could see the veins in his closed eyelids. A toilet and a mattress were his only companion…..apart from the noise that was the unbearable cacophony that went on relentlessly. He had been subjected to it for several hours now. “So the agents of Satan have learnt to use the Lord’s own weapons against the faithful,” Eli said to himself, although Joshua would never resort to this torture.
They had questioned him at first. There was no ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ routine. They had simply asked him what they wanted to know. He had been quite animated in his response, and had almost told them to suck their Devil’s cock like the whores they were. But he kept that comment to himself. Now, in a disposable boiler suit, his clothes stripped from him before the interrogation, his hands still handcuffed, he considered his predicament. Ahab had been wrong to order them to try and kill the man. Eli had said as much, but the other two had been all for it. They had shown him the guns they had bought illegally and assured Eli that the job would be done quick and fast. For was not the Lord their Shepherd? Eli wished he had said what was in his heart, that the Lord would not protect those whose arrogance made them foolish. But he had not, and had seen his friend and his lover gunned down by a warrior who served the lord of lies. Eli also felt ashamed. In that brief moment where his friends had been gunned down before him, fear had won over, and he had turned and ran. Could he have helped? Could he have somehow turned the tide to bring down the enemy?
And now he was in their lair, helpless and vulnerable, subject to their whims. There was, it seemed, only one thing for him to do, one final defining act to show his defiance to the defiler that ruled the world. To show his faith, his true devotion. Eli uncovered his ears and opened his eyes, despite the bright pain from the light. Standing unsteadily on his feet, he propped himself up with his back against the wall. Praying silently to God and casting his hands behind his head, he placed his tongue out as far as it would go, holding it there firmly in-between his teeth. He paused, savouring the last moments life had to offer him. And then he let himself fall forwards, resisting the temptation to break his descent. The impact not only broke his jaw but also severed his tongue, cutting both lingual arteries. In a haze of pain and light and sound, his mouth quickly filled with blood, and as he lapsed steadily into unconsciousness, he inhaled his own life force and died before medical teams could be dispatched to save him.
4.30PM 14
th
September 2015, Hounslow, London
He was already well on the way to getting nicely drunk. And he was still angry, very angry. Owen sat on a less than clean sofa in the abandoned flat that he had acquired for himself. The council’s attempt to board it up had lasted less than ten minutes when faced with an onslaught of crowbars and the well-placed boots of his gang. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a gang. It was just him and four others who only really stayed around because it was beneficial to them. They were also afraid of him. Owen wasn’t big, but he was vicious, and didn’t seem to have any fear whatsoever. He was well known for his ability to lash out with unrestrained violence at any provocation.
At the moment, he was alone, which was probably for the best. Now was not the time for others to be around him. Yes, Owen was feared by those in his gang and by those his gang harassed. The people around him learnt quickly to make themselves scarce when he got into one of his moods, because those moods always ended in violence. Today was one of those times, and the two young men who had been with him in Clive’s fast food joint that morning had quickly made themselves scarce when they had seen Owen start drinking about lunchtime. They suddenly found they had errands to run.
Deep down, Owen knew what brought on the anger. It was his own self-loathing that spurred it on. Truth be told, he hated himself, hated what he had become, hated the world he had created around him. But he only knew one way to react to those feelings. So he bottled them up, denied their existence and did his best to wash them in a sea of alcohol whenever they dared make themselves known. Of course, the alcohol fuelled his anger, which made him self-destruct even more, which made him commit more acts which scarred and damaged his psyche even more. The bravado he displayed was merely an act, the act of a boy growing into a man who was not the sociopath he pretended to be. He was just a broken child who didn’t know how to fix himself. So he lashed out at the world that he blamed for the gnawing pit of despair that burned within his very soul. Unfortunately, the more he let his anger run wild, the more the fires of sociopathy grew within him.
His mother saw the truth of him, saw the pain and the anguish that he tried to hide. She had been there listening to him weep in the early hours. But she knew she couldn’t help him, knew she couldn’t fix the train wreck that his life was becoming. How could she? She hadn’t been able to salvage her own life. She had lost any chance when he first manifested these traits, when she first saw him commit an act of wanton violence. She should have gone to the police, turned witness against him, let the law of the land bring down its justice so that it could also bring down its mercy. But she hadn’t, not because she loved him, but because she too was broken and wanted nothing to do with the scum that wore the blue uniform. And with no father figure to enforce any kind of discipline, she did the worst thing any mother could do – she let him go down his own path with no guidance and no hindrance. And now her son was a killer. And she lived inside a bottle, a further example for her precious son to follow.
Owen had not meant to kill the man – at least that was what he said to himself. To those who followed him, however, he showed no self-doubt, had merely shrugged when the stupid bastard had smashed his skull on the pavement. Owen didn’t think he had even hit the guy that hard, but his anger had exploded when the black fool had fought back. It was a mugging for Christ sake. You didn’t fight back when you were outnumbered – everyone knew that. But the man had, and had landed some pretty decisive blows on two of his attackers before Owen’s fist had slammed into the side of his jaw. Owen had looked down at the semi-conscious, groaning figure and had looked around at the group with him. He winked at one, a smile forming on his lips. And then he had kicked the prone figure of Jack Nathan’s father in the head with his steel-capped boot. Inside a little voice was screaming, but the ego knew the show of force was demanded, was expected. A short piece about the victim’s subsequent death had appeared in one of the free newspapers, and on reading it, Owen’s blood had turned to ice, and a little bit more of his humanity had died. They always say the first kill is the hardest, that it becomes easier after that. Owen didn’t know who “they” were, but he figured they were probably right. And over the next few days, he would get to test that theory out in abundance.
5.34PM, 19
th
November 2014, Hayton Vale, Devon, UK
To those who routinely drank in the Rock Inn Pub, the lone man who arrived at the same time every day was a curious fellow. He was always polite, he always seemed to wear the same tailored suit, and always ordered the same meal. His hair and beard were always well groomed, although he never availed himself of the local hair salon. He never spoke more than he needed to, and he always washed down the food with the same two pints of beer. Attempts to engage him in conversation, to explain the mystery of the man, had always been politely rebuffed. Nobody even knew his name or why he had suddenly appeared and chosen to live here for nearly a year.
Word had also gotten around about the sale of the old farmhouse years prior, and of the building work that had gone on, mostly unseen due to the farmhouse only being reached by a long and winding private road that was now secured by security cameras and a formidable electronic gate. The twenty acres of land that the farm covered quickly became encircled by sturdy eight-foot Barbican fencing, topped with fresh and gleaming razor wire. Earlier attempts by the few neighbours to welcome the new owners to the locality had been unsuccessful, nobody answering the electronic gate intercom, and after the construction was complete, nobody was ever seen using the gate to enter or exit. Soon enough, people had given up trying. It was thought that the quiet man lived in what the locals now called “The Fortress”, although nobody really knew for sure. And due to the man’s thin frame, scarred face and meek demeanour, they labelled him as a harmless eccentric and left him to his own devices. Eventually, like everything else familiar, his presence amongst them faded into indifference.