Judgement (The Twelve) (3 page)

Before
his world went black.

He saw an image of his step father standing in front of him, drunk as a stunk. Removing his trouser belt
, Chris was backed up against his bedroom wall. No not again
! This time as his step father started to lower his
trousers;
Chris ran forward and
tried to hit his Step Father who easily brushed the blow aside.

‘Not that way’ He heard Wally state. Chris found himself
back
in the alleyway. Wally was standing there in front of him, dead as dead can be
,
’
this
way boy.’  Wally pointed to his right and Chris saw the same strange looking thing that had killed Wally. It was still minus
its
hand and most of
its
arm. The thing snarled, let out a high pitched scream and ran straight at Chris who without thinking hit it hard on the chin. Bang! The creature exploded in a huge shower of sparks and ash.

Then the
white haired
teenager appeared hanging from the drain pipes again, ‘You killed the old man.’

‘No I didn’t!’ Chris found himself defending his actions,
‘I
destroyed the thing that killed him.’

The bearded man appeared at his side,’ Not possible. You’re a kid. You don’t have the power to kill
S
hades.’

His step father climbed up out of Chris’s cardboard box, ’Think you could get away from me. Come here boy.’

‘No!’ Chris shouted backing away from him.

The teenager jumped across the road, landing next to his step father,’
He needs punishing, he killed an old man
.’

His step father nodded, ’
Yes Chris time to take what’s due.
’

The o
ne armed man
appeared out of thin air, knife in hand, he offered it to Chris’s step father, ‘Take this.’

His step father took the knife, ‘
time to be judged kid.’

Chris found that he could almost fly, willing himself, he jumped almost as high as the surrounding buildings,
turn
ing
in the air
,
he flew
straight back down towards his Step father
.
’
I
do the
Judg
ing
and you have been found
guilty
’ He yelled.

The other two
dissolved
as
Chris drove straight into his Step Fathers who exploded into red hot ash
right before his eyes
.

A beautiful woman appeared, floating in the air before him,
her eyes were strangely covered in a white film,
she reached
out
a
strong slender
hand to gently stroke his face,’ You’re safe kid. Wake up.’
Then s
he slapped him
so hard he thought his teeth would shake loose.

The woman’s face remained in front of his eyes. He tried hard
to focus
and slowly she swam into clarity.
The first thing he noticed was her eyes again. He realised he’d been dreaming, but it was the same woman standing over him. Where was he? Turning his head to the side, he saw he was lying on a well worn
leather
settee that smelled
musty
, in a large run down
living
room with faded drawn curtains.
The fireplace was one of those old blackened iron grid
types
surrounded by tiles.
He noticed that it was
burning logs and not pretend
gas fired
ones either
. A
nother
large brown patterned
settee
was
against the far wall. Three people sat upon it. All wore leather outfits. What the hell was this? Was he mixed up with freaky Goths?
The overhead light was on and he blinked as he glanced at the naked bulb. The room smelled old but it had a sort of comfortable feel to it. Beat the hell out of sleeping in a damp cardboard box. He looked at the three seated on the
far
settee.

The first was
the one armed
man;
he was picked
his teeth
with one of his knives and the knife looked razor sharp. His chest was
still
festooned with blades of different sizes and shapes.

Next to him and squashed in the middle, was a female teenager who Chris reckoned was about eighteen
years old. She had purple shoulder length hair but it was the eye patch worn over her left eye that caught his attention.
It was a pretty face
,
shame about the eye patch. Maybe it was just an infection?

She was dressed in a
Japanese ninja style thin
leather outfit. His eyes travelled down her shapely long legs
, wrapped in strips of tight leather,
to a wicked pair of boots with sharpened metal
pointed
to
e
caps.

But it was the person seated on the end next to her, that made his eyes go wide in amazement. A bloody priest!
A grossly huge Priest! 
Well the elderly
hugely overweigh
grey haired male was wearing a dog collar worn over a dirty black cotton shirt under a black studded jacket and trousers.
He must weight all of thirty stone.
What the hell was this?

Groaning, his chin and neck hurting like hell. Chris attempted to sit up and gave up as pain shot through his head and neck. He lay there for a second, willing the pain to go away.
It was his little secret.
He felt the skin on his face and neck become hot for a moment, then just like his hand, the pain vanished.

He heard a
sharp female voice
saying, “You see that
, those bruises just vanished!
”

And someone
seated on the settee repl
ied
, “Shush I’m thinking.”

Chris opened his eyes again and forced himself to sit upright.
T
he room contained others dressed in black studded leather outfits.
The female with the strange white eyes and flowing white hair
that seemed too move slightly as if
in a  gentle
breeze gently
, stood hand on hips in front of him.
She was
pale
skinned
about
five foot
nine
tall and
slim. Studs extenuating the shape of her firm shapely breasts,
in a w pattern underneath the bulge of
her tight fitting leather one piece
cat suit
and high heeled boots. She carried
a large
hunting bow across her back together with a quiver full of black
tipped
arrows.
But even though she looked like she had blind eyes, he knew she could see him more clearly than anyone else.

Slightly behind her and to her left
,
stood
another male
,
Chris recognised him as being the one who had hit him. Now he got a better look at him. H
e was at least Six foot
tall extremely slender to the point of being bulimic. He had a clean shaven
effeminate face
and Chris swore he was wearing eye liner. He had
short blond hair
and
dark brown eyes
. The expression on his face made him look very angry. He wore
one piece thin leather workman style overalls with
knee length Goth style boots with thick soles.
But Chris’s eyes grew even wider as he noticed h
is unusually long thin fingers, the nails of which looked like Eagles talons
that he constantly flexed. He had a pair of
fingerless
leather gloves tucked into a wide leather belt worn tight around a non existent
waist.

A
nother
male
figure walked into view crossing from left to right.
Once again Chris was surprised. 
A
leather clad gunfighter! He
was about thirty with swept back black hair going grey at his temples. He had an old style short goatee plus a thin moustache, but it was the
twin
Wild West
pearl handled C
olt six shooter
s
,
in
twin
studded
worn leather
holsters on a
belt
that caught his attention
.
Chris noticed
t
he guy actually had metal spurs on his knee length boots! He wore a leather waist coat over a
black cotton
collarless shirt.

Chris pulled himself to his feet, turned and nearly jumped out of his worn trainers!
Standing
or crouching behind him was a gigantic hunchbacked man, with wild black greasy hair and beard. He had the biggest arms Chris had even seem
and even with his deformity, his head was almost touching the ceiling, whilst massive
fists almost dragging the floor. Chris saw he was wearing
an iron
head band padded with fur. The giant
wor
e
leather
and
steel
disc
re-enforced wrist
and elbow
protectors
,
together with
a
black
metal
shoulder protector
,
with a wicked spike protruding from the top, worn like some ancient roman gladiator on
his left shoulder
,
attached by a series of leather straps across his massive chest
. He wore
breaches and leather
studded fingerless
gauntlets, crisscrossed leather knee length strapping, held his thick leather soled sandals in place.
Apart from that he was bare chested and
surprisingly
bare footed. The hunchback started to growl softly which really disturbed him.