Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) Page 10

“We are clones.”

  They both smiled simultaneously, as if to emphasise their statement. Naff looked a little less interested and took an instinctive step closer to Michael, feeling creeped-out by their smile.

  Michael moved forward, leaving Naff to battle his disturbances without the shoulder of his friend to lean on. He looked at them both closely and they let him, taking pride in their status.

  “Weird,” Michael said under his breath. “Every little detail.”

  “So how come you’re not constantly speaking over each other?” Naff wanted to know.

  “Were genetic doubles, we are not the same person.”

  Naff looked bemused; he opened his mouth to issue another question and then slammed it shut when Michael offered a different line of questioning.

  “So does that mean you’re both mortal?”

  “Yes,” one answered proudly. “Of course--”

  “Shit.”

  Michael planted his hands on their shoulders and grasped tightly. Instantly the colour drained from their faces. They fought back, tried to wriggle free, but their strength rapidly leaked from their body. Their limbs quickly became incapable of resistance; their lungs incapable of breath.

  They slunk to the floor like rag dolls, dropping out from under Michael’s grasp. Their cold, lifeless bodies, coiled around his feet.

  He stepped back, brushed his hands together and happily announced, “That was easy.”

  Naff inspected the corpses with a gentle shake of his head. “It scares me that they gave you guys that ability.”

  Michael tapped his friend jokingly on the shoulder, Naff jumped instinctively and then cursed under his breath.

  “Just be thankful they didn’t give it to someone like Chip,” he said.

  Naff felt a chill coast through his body, he shuddered. “Good point.”

  Michael bent down to inspect the dead duo. He reached into the pocket of Two, and withdrew a timer. It didn’t look much different from his own; he could have easily confused the two devices.

  “What do you think?” he asked, handing the device up to his friend, who had only just finishing pondering a world where Chip could kill anyone who annoyed him or didn’t buy him a drink.

  Naff took it, turned it this way and that, inspected the screen, toyed with the buttons and the menu. “Remarkable,” he said after a few moments, his eyes wide. “This is our timer,” he held it up like a trophy, “our technology.”

  “Copy?” Michael wondered, still on his haunches as he searched through the dead men’s pockets for any further clues.

  Naff shook his head. “No. Straight off the line. I’d say someone somewhere was missing a timer.”

  “Why would they need it?”

  “To keep tags on you I guess. They weren’t very bright but clearly someone told them what you could do to them. I guess if they had the timer they knew where you would be and how long they had to finish,” he shrugged, “whatever it is they were doing.”

  “How could they see the spirits? They were mortal.”

  Naff dropped the timer into his pocket and shrugged. “They had a hard time identifying us, and they seemed unsure about their actual targets,” he explained, watching as Michael inspected their identical faces. “It seems they can see us but they can’t distinguish--”

  He stopped short. Michael had removed the sunglasses from one of the men to expose a set of glimmering metallic eyes which appeared to be whirring inside his skull.

  “Creepy,” Naff said with another little shudder.

  With a brave thumb and forefinger, Michael reached into an eye socket and plucked out the metallic orb, leaving a black hole embedded with a fine silver lining inside the skull. He rolled the eye on his palm like a marble. It had stopped whirring, but it still glimmered like polished steel when it caught the light.

  “What about these?” he asked, tossing the eye over his shoulder to his friend.

  Naff toyed with the catch, bouncing it off his palm with a twisted face, as if his friend had just tossed him Chip’s balled collection of body hair. He watched it spin uncontrollably out of his hand and onto the sofa. “Never seen them before,” he said to the back of Michael’s head, hiding his hands sheepishly behind his back. “Could have something to do with our missing souls though.”

  Michael stood up, straightened his body with a complimentary groan. He looked at his friend and noted his hidden hands with a small flicker of bemusement.

  He held a weapon and a vial in front of Naff, the question on his lips unspoken.

  Naff nodded knowingly. “No doubt that’s how they collected--”

  A cough from the other side of the room alerted them; they turned to see the ghosts of Alan Richards and his wife standing serenely and expectantly. They were both smiling, their arms locked.

  “What happens now?” Alan asked them.

  “Now you can rest in peace,” Michael told him. “Come with me.”

  “To heaven?”

  “To the alleyway.”

  10

  “Hold on,” Chip raised a quizzical eyebrow; it looked like a hamster was folding into the foetal position on his forehead. “Didn’t the clones have souls?”

  Michael continued walking, ignoring the inquisitive imp behind him. The waiting room had filled up somewhat since his last visit. In the corner a short, stocky reaper who had never introduced himself, or even spoken a word of a greeting, sat with his head down, catching up on some sleep. Beside him a teenage spirit twiddled his thumbs and took in every inch of the room with wide, awe-filled eyes.

  “Clones don’t have souls,” Naff told Chip.

  “But the original one would have,” Chip pushed, clearly perturbed by the event.

  Michael turned around at this, he grinned at his friend. “Precisely!” he declared triumphantly.

  He was having a minor eureka moment or a stroke, Chip wasn’t sure, but he shot back a grin that said otherwise.

  Michael dropped the eyeball taken from the clone onto the reception desk. It bounced with a heavy clunk and then settled.

  Hilda stared at Michael and then at the eye. She picked it up with great caution and trepidation and then rolled it around her palm when she decided it wasn’t going to bite.

  “What is it?” she wanted to know.

  “Eye ball.”

  Hilda dropped the eye like it was made of molten lead.

  “Where the hell did you get that from?” she asked, surprisingly disgusted for someone who worked with the dead and looked like she spent her free time cackling over a cauldron.

  “Where do you think?” Michael said dryly.

  “Why--”

  “I need to speak with Azrael,” Michael interrupted.

  She snapped her mouth shut and glared at him under thick, arched eyebrows. “I told you no,” she warned.

  “This is important.”

  Hilda was looking over Michael’s shoulder, a hint of perplexity on her haggard face. “Hasn’t that naked man been here before?”

  “Where is Azrael? I need to speak with him.”

  “He looks a little lost,” she said distantly, her eyes lowered to crotch height as they followed James Waddington on a merry wonder around the room.

  Michael shook his head in exasperation. He took the wondering soul by the arm and beckoned for Alan Richards and his wife to follow, taking them all into the processing room and calling for Chip and Naff to stay and wait.

  The room sparked into life as Michael entered. An automated voice cackled into existence all around him, issuing instructions as Michael apathetically listened.

  “Place souls on the marked spheres.”

  Three spheres lit up on the floor. The three spirits looked mesmerised, their contentedness flicked to reverence. Michael looked annoyed. He gestured for them to step onto the spheres and they did so with a joyful skip in their lifeless legs.

  A rainbow of epileptic lights followed; a cacophony of noise. The three souls vanished, as did the marked spheres on which th
ey had stood. The lights overhead began to dim, descending a blanket of darkness over the room. Michael rested against the far wall and allowed his back to gradually slide down until his backside rested on the floor.

  He took out the metallic eye and began to idly flip it between his fingers as a desk rose from the foundations in the middle of the room, its radiant surface glowing brighter with each incremental ascent.

  “Take the ticket for use in the machine,” the automated voice said after the desk had finished its climb. A slip of paper poked out of a small computer on the surface of the desk, awaiting collection. “The money will be credited to your account immediately.”

  Michael glanced at the ticket but didn’t make a move to collect it.

  The automated voice issued a warning after several moments of inactivity. “If you do not take your ticket in the next five-seconds, your credits will be cancelled and your account will be suspended.”

  Michael felt his breath catch in his throat. “What the fuck!” he bolted to his feet quicker than he knew he could and practically dove towards the table, ripping out the ticket like he was snatching food from a lion’s mouth.

  “Jesus,” he mumbled softly with the ticket stuffed neatly into his pocket.

  He turned to leave, but the Angel of Death was blocking his path. Michael started in surprise, and then settled, holding his chest. “JesusFuckingChrist,” he hissed in one long breath.

  Azrael beamed at him. “Did you like my impression?” he asked merrily. “It certainly seems to have got you going.”

  “That was you?” Michael replied, unable to suppress a grin. “The Angel of Death has a sense of humour?”

  “Why so glum?”

  Michael looked like he had been asked for tea and crumpets with Freddy Kruger. “Why so glum?” he parodied.

  Azrael shrugged. “I’m trying to sound informal.”

  “It really doesn’t suit you.”

  “As you wish,” Azrael said with a swift nod. His demeanour instantly changed to something more serious and far more intimidating. “What is wrong?”

  Michael skulked forward, stretched an arm to indicate his intentions and then and dropped the eyeball into Azrael’s waiting palm.

  “I stopped the men,” he explained tiredly. “They were clones. They were using this to see the souls. And--” He retrieved the weapon and the vial he had found on the two men, “--this to gather them.” He took a step back, sluggishly drooping against the desk and praying it didn’t duck back into the foundations as he wasn’t sure he had the energy to remain upright.

  “That’s all I can do,” he said as Azrael examined the objects briefly. “I’m not a detective and I live in a world of few answers and too many questions. This is bigger than those two guys, but I can’t find out how big or--”

  “You’re work here is done,” Azrael interjected sharply. He had deposited the objects out of sight and looked ready to leave.

  “What?” Michael said, taken-aback.

  “You are finished.”

  Michael found the energy to propel himself upright. “That’s it?” he asked, incredulous. “What happens now?”

  “For you?” Azrael shrugged indifferently. “Nothing. Although what you have done here, will be taken into account. It will not be forgotten,” he explained with a sense of finality.

  “And this werewolf business?”

  “It does not concern you.”

  Azrael turned to leave. Michael hopped forward eagerly.

  “No! Stop fucking telling me that!” he spat belligerently. “It does concern me. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours chasing down two fucking maniacs who have been trying to do my job for me,” Michael was so annoyed and caught up in his arguing that he was spraying drops of spittle towards Azrael, who stood with a charmed look on his face.

  “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.