The 13th Horseman (12 page)

A
SHORT DISTANCE
away, in a dark wooden shed in an overgrown back garden, a telephone rang. It was the first time, since time itself had begun, that this particular telephone had made a sound.

The three men sitting at the table tensed. War straightened his shoulders, adjusted his sword, then smoothed down his beard. Only then did he reach for the receiver and listen to the clipped tones of the person on the other end of the line.

“Yes, sir,” he said eventually. “I understand, sir.”

With a
click
, War hung up the phone. He undid the laces of his boots, then tied them again, tighter this time. Only then did he look at the other men.

“Right, then,” he said, with an uncharacteristic tremor in his voice. “That’s us.”

Drake looked down at the barking cat and couldn’t contain his delight. “Toxie!”

“Hey! It’s that ca—” said Mel, before Drake’s hand clamped over her mouth.

“Don’t say it,” he warned.

Dr Black’s lips drew up into a mirthless grin. “Nice kitty,” he said, then he toe-punted the mangy animal across the room. It clattered hard against the bottom of a bookcase. The shelves wobbled back and forth, back and forth, and then they toppled forward, showering Toxie in hardback history books, before crunching down on top of him.

The teacher returned his attention to his captive audience. “Now,” he said. “Where were we?”

There was a sudden
boom
and the bookcase exploded. A shape, like a small cat becoming a big something else, glowed white hot in the corner of the classroom.

The three still-conscious occupants of the cupboard watched as Toxie’s back tore open, and a row of spiky plates grew from his spine. His stubby bones snapped and splintered, then joined together again in new shapes and new sizes. A hide of molten granite burned through the tattered remains of his fur, as the slender muscles across his shoulders bulged. In just a few seconds, Toxie’s body had become that of a terrifying Hellhound.

His head, though, was still very much a cat.

“Getting there,” said Drake encouragingly.

Toxie wagged his forked tail and
woofed
happily. “What the Hell is going on?” Mel asked, catching Drake by the sleeve and not letting go.

“I’ll explain that later too. But for now, you might want to step back.”

He put himself in front of Mel just as Toxie’s powerful back legs twitched. The Hellhound bounded on to Dr Black’s desk, his paws leaving scorch-marks on the wood. Dr Black’s twisted grin didn’t falter.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” he growled, beckoning the monster over. Toxie’s tiny jaws opened wide as he hurled himself at the history teacher. Dr Black twisted to the side, raised his arm in front of his chest, then drove his elbow into the Hellhound’s throat.

Toxie’s momentum carried him forward, regardless. Dr Black turned and bent low as the full weight of the snarling Hellhound landed on his back. Incredibly, he didn’t fall. Even more incredibly, he straightened back up in one jerky movement.

“Bad kitty,” he said, then he ran backwards out of the cupboard. Drake and Mel watched him charge across the classroom, dodging desks and chairs, the Hellhound howling with fury on his back.

And then there was a loud
KRIK
as Dr Black drove the beast against the wall. A spider’s web pattern spread up the plaster and Toxie let out a squeal of pain. Dr Black glared into the cupboard and fixed his eyes on Drake. He began to cackle, quietly at first, but quickly becoming louder until the sound of his laughter drowned out Toxie’s yelps.

“We should get out of here,” Drake muttered.

“You think?” Mel said. She took hold of Drake’s hand and he led her out into the classroom. “What do we do about him?” she asked, glancing back at the unconscious Mr Franks.

Drake thought for a moment, then firmly pulled the cupboard door closed. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “Probably.”

“Where do you think you are going, Mr Finn?” Dr Black demanded. He made a lunge for them, but Toxie dug his claws into the teacher’s shoulders and dropped to the floor. Dr Black was pulled backwards.

“Go, go, go,” Drake cried, pushing Mel towards the classroom door. They clattered out into the corridor and slammed the door closed, muffling the sounds of the battle raging inside.

“That was... What was...?” Mel stammered. She shook her head and pulled herself together. “What’s happening?”

“I’ll explain soon, I promise,” he said. “But now we have to run.”

He caught her hand again and pulled her along the corridor towards the exit. Pupils usually didn’t bother going upstairs during breaktimes, so the history corridor was completely deserted. Their footsteps echoed noisily as they made for the corner that led to the stairs.

Drake skidded round the bend, dragging Mel with him. Three figures blocked the top of the stairs. They turned their spotty faces Drake’s way as he appeared round the corner.

“Well, well, well, if it ain’t the knob ’ead,” Bingo muttered. “Been eating any Frosties lately?”

“Not now, guys, OK?” Drake said. He moved to pass them, but Dim and Spud blocked his way.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Bingo continued.

“No, you haven’t,” Drake said. “You walked right past me yesterday.”

“Yeah, well now we are looking for you, all right? Did you think we forgot what you done?”

There was a
crash
from along the corridor behind them. None of the three bullies so much as blinked.

“I’m warning you, get out of my way,” Drake said. “We need to get out of here. All of us.”

“You ain’t going nowhere, knob ’ead.” Bingo looked Mel up and down. He fixed his eyes on her checked skirt and leered. “And neither’s your girlfriend.”

Bingo made a grab for Mel, both hands raised, fingers spread wide. Drake let go of her hand long enough to shove the bully in the chest. “Leave her alone,” he yelled, in a voice that didn’t sound quite like his own.

In his panicked rage, Drake pushed the boy harder than he had intended. He watched helplessly as Bingo stumbled back towards the stairs. The bully’s face barely had time to register his surprise before he started to fall.

All four of them looked on, dumbstruck, as Bingo clattered down the hard stone steps. He bounced and rolled down the last few stairs and hit the floor below with a sickening
crunch
.

In the silence that followed, Drake was deafened by the thunder of his own crashing heart.

Mel looked down at the motionless boy, lying on his back, his limbs bent at awkward angles. Both shaking hands went to her mouth. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God.”

“What have I done?” Drake whimpered. “He’s not moving. What have I done?”

Dim and Spud kept quiet. They followed Drake and Mel as they hurried down the stairs.

“I’ve... I’ve killed him,” Drake said. “I’ve actually killed him.”

“Maybe not,” Mel said. “I mean, maybe not. There’s no blood or anything.”

“No, but...” Drake remembered the crunching sound Bingo had made on the floor, and the way his head had battered off almost every step.

He stopped, three stairs from the bottom. “Why isn’t there blood?”

Mel carried on past him. “He might be OK. Maybe he just needs—”

“Mel, wait!” Drake cried, pulling her back just in time. With a mechanical
whirr
, Bingo’s legs and arms twisted backwards, raising his chest up towards the ceiling. His head spun all the way round until his face was pointed towards the floor. He looked like a dog wearing a human-suit, but the truth was, Drake knew, that he was neither of those things.

“OK,” Mel gasped, stepping back. She glanced sideways at Drake. “Explain this one. Now.”

“He’s a robot,” Drake told her.

“A
robot
?”

“In the cupboard. Dr Black must’ve done something to the real one and let the robot take his place.”

Mel frowned. “But wouldn’t that mean...?”

They both turned to look at the other two bullies. Circles of red light flickered on in the dark centres of Dim and Spud’s eyes.

Down on the floor, Bingo’s mouth pulled into an electric snarl. “Kill them,” he commanded. “Kill them both!”

“Move!” Drake yelped. Catching Mel by the arm he jumped the final few steps. Using Bingo’s chest as a springboard, they raced along the corridor towards the fire exit.

Dim and Spud bent over and wrapped their hands round their own ankles. The lines of their backs curved to form two almost perfect circles and they rolled, like hula hoops, down the stairs.

Drake pushed down the bar of the fire exit and the door swung wide. A piercing alarm began to scream, drawing the attention of the hundred or so kids dotted around the concrete rectangle before them.

“Get out of the way!” Drake bellowed, as he and Mel spilled out of the school. “Move, it’s not safe, it’s not—”

A crashing sound drowned him out. The spinning circles that were Spud and Dim punched through the walls on either side of the door, spraying chunks of stone and slivers of glass. The school grounds were filled with the sound of screaming as Spud and Dim pursued Drake and Mel across the concrete.

Drake sprinted on, pushing his way through the panicked masses, pulling Mel behind him. The robots were too fast. There was no way he could outrun them. He had to dodge round the crowds, but Dim and Spud ploughed through them, scattering schoolkids like skittles.

Frantically, Drake shoved two fingers in his mouth and blew. Air hissed out like a slow puncture. The spinning hoops were almost upon them now. “Come on,” Drake pleaded. “Just
whistle
!”

He blew again. There was no sound, but suddenly a horse was there, rearing up in front of them, sending the school yard into even greater chaos.

Fluid dripped from the white horse’s mouth, and from its eyes, and from the weeping sores that covered its flanks. Pestilence slid down from the saddle, and pulled Drake and Mel in behind him. Then he faced the rapidly approaching bullies, and did the last thing Drake would have expected.

He took off his rubber gloves.

The two bullies spun to a stop and straightened up in front of him. Pest held his hands up, palms facing them.

“Tell me, gents, do you know what ‘Guinea Worm Disease’ is?” he asked.

Dim and Spud didn’t reply.

“It’s a rather unfortunate medical condition that results in a metre-long worm growing inside your stomach, then chewing its way out through the nearest available exit. It’s not contagious.” Pestilence looked at both of his hands in turn. “Usually.”

Drake tapped him on the shoulder. “Uh, Pest...”

“One second, Drake,” Pestilence said. “I was just about to share something with your
friends
here.”

“But, Pest, you don’t—”

“Leave this to me, Drake. I
do
know what I’m doing.”

He pressed his hands against the bullies’ foreheads. A sickly green glow spread out from his palm and fingertips. Dim and Spud stared at him, their faces impassive. Pestilence’s delicate features creased into a frown.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Drake said. “Techno-magic mumbo jumbo. They’re robots.”

Pestilence’s face went several shades paler. “Robots? Ah, so is that how they did the spinny thing? I did wonder.” He withdrew his hands. “Wasting my time with that, then,” he said. He smiled nervously. “We should probably go.”

“One step ahead of you, Uncle Bob,” Mel said. She was sitting on the horse, towards the back of the saddle. Pest leaped up in front of her, and they both pulled Drake up between them.

“Hold on,” Pest warned. Drake felt Mel’s hands on his waist. They gripped him tightly as she pulled herself close against his back.

Pestilence flicked the reins, and the world around them became a streak of speed.

“Hey, Chief,” Mel said into Drake’s ear.

“Yeah?”

She tightened her grip round his waist. “Your family is frickin’
nuts
.”

T
HE HORSE RACED
through a row of back gardens, leaping the hedges and fences between them with practised ease. Despite the animal’s performance, though, Mel was concerned.

“I think your horse needs a vet,” she said, as they all ducked under a washing line. “He’s bleeding out of, well, everywhere.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Drake told her. “He’s fine, though.”

“Fit as a fiddle,” Pestilence chimed.

“My, uh, predecessor,” Drake said, keeping his voice low. “I found out who he is. His name’s Dr Black, he’s a teacher at my school.”

“Really? Interesting. But not our biggest worry at the minute.”

“What? Why? What’s happening?” Drake asked.

They’d left the robo-bullies back near the school. Dim and Spud had spun after them for a few hundred metres, but the horse had easily outpaced them. Even so, Drake shuddered to think what they and Dr Black might be up to now.

“We’re taking Mel home,” Pest said. He leaned round in the saddle. “I like what you’ve done with your hair, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Mel said. “But I don’t want to go home. I want someone to tell me what’s going on.”

“The end of the world,” said Pest. He turned and met Drake’s eye. “We’ve had the call.”

“What call?” asked Mel.

“
The
call?” Drake gasped.

“
What
call? Will someone please tell me what’s happening?”

The horse stopped, suddenly and without warning. Drake looked along a gravel driveway at a large house with two cars parked out front.

He swung down, just a little awkwardly. Mel dismounted beside him. She stared at him expectantly. “Well?”

“Look, the thing is,” Drake said. “I’m not really entirely sure what’s going on myself, so I don’t know how to explain any of it.”

“Try.”

Drake’s mouth moved, as if testing out the words before he said them. “The Horsemen of the Apocalypse live in my garden,” he said. “No, wait, that makes me sound mental.”

“It does a bit,” Mel agreed.

Drake tried to think of another way of phrasing it. “No,” he realised, “that’s pretty much it. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse live in my garden. Or three of them do, anyway. Dr Black used to be the fourth. He was Death, but he got bored of waiting for the Apocalypse, so he left to destroy the world on his own. And so I’m the new one.”

“You’re the new Death?” Mel said.

Drake smiled faintly. “Pretty hard to believe, right?”

“So, who’s he?” she asked, jabbing a thumb at the man on horseback beside them.

“Pestilence,” Drake said. “He’s not really my Uncle Bob. I made that up.”

Mel nodded. “I didn’t think he looked like a Bob.”

“
Thank
you! See? I thought maybe Alejandro or—”

“Not now, Pest.”

Mel looked at the two of them, then at the horse. “So, what happens now?” she asked.

Drake’s eyes widened. “What, you mean you believe me?”

“I just saw a cat change into a... thing that wasn’t a cat,” Mel said. “And some kids I’ve known for ten years become killer robot hula-hoops. Right now, I’ll believe pretty much anything you tell me.”

Drake found himself smiling. Mel didn’t join in.

“So, it’s happening?” she asked. “He’s really going to destroy the world, like you said?”

Drake nodded. “It looks like it.”

“We need to move,” said Pestilence softly. “The others will be waiting.”

“Uh, yeah,” Drake mumbled. “Just a minute.”

“We made a deal, remember?” Mel said. “This morning. We made a deal. I thought you were kidding, but… we made a deal. If he’s trying to destroy the world, we stop him, remember?”

He nodded. “I remember.”

“OK, then. Good,” she said. She leaned in and kissed him, just briefly, on the lips.

“What was that for?” he asked, when she pulled away.

“Luck,” Mel said. “Something tells me you’re going to need it.”

The shed looked different when Drake and Pest stepped inside. It took Drake a moment to realise why. The square table at which the horsemen usually sat had been pushed off to one side. Three of the chairs were stacked neatly on top of it. Famine’s reinforced seat was half tucked underneath.

“High time you got here,” said War as they both entered. He bent down and caught hold of a circle of metal that was set into the floor. Had the table still been there, the handle would have been almost completely concealed.

War pulled and a wide hatch swung upwards, revealing a stairway leading down into a brightly lit chamber beneath the shed. “Famine’s already down there,” he said. “Getting ready.”

“Getting ready?” said Drake. “What do you mean, getting ready?”

“Well, he’s hardly going to usher in the Apocalypse in a baggy grey tracksuit, is he?” War said. “He’s getting into uniform, like we all should’ve done ten minutes ago.”

“No, but listen, it’s not the real Apocalypse,” Drake said. “It’s Dr Black, the old Death, he’s the one doing it.”

War blinked. “So?”

“
So?
What do you mean,
so
? So it’s not the real Apocalypse.”

“Who’s to say what is and isn’t the Apocalypse? For all we know, this was always how it was going to end.” He gestured with his head for Drake to go down the steps. “Now come on. Shift it.”

It wasn’t a single room beneath the shed, as Drake had been expecting. It was a complex. The walls were painted in clinical white, and a dozen corridors led off in a dozen different directions. There were four doors set into the walls, each a different colour. One was white, one was red, one was black and the final one was a pale, sickly green. Black and white squares of vinyl covered the floor, and row after row of fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead.

In the centre of this room were four leather couches, laid out in a square. A glass coffee table sat between them, with magazines stacked neatly on top. It looked like the waiting room of an expensive dentist.

Pestilence, then War, joined him at the foot of the steps. “What is this place?” Drake asked.

“It’s a... shared area, between the afterlives. We rent some space from the management company,” War said dismissively. He turned to Pest. “Go get ready.”

“Righty-ho,” Pestilence said. He smiled, but it sat uneasily on him. “See you soon, then.”

War caught Drake by the scruff of the neck. “You, with me,” he said, marching him towards the red door.

They pushed through into a locker room, with wooden benches lining three of the walls. There were just two lockers. They stood back to back in the centre of the room.

“That’s yours, that’s mine,” said War, indicating which was which.

“How come we’re not all here?” Drake asked. “We’ve all got our own changing rooms,” War explained. “I moved your locker in here so we could have a little chat about what happens next.”

“What does happen next?”

“Get dressed,” War said. He opened his locker and pulled out a gleaming breastplate.

Almost in a trance, Drake opened his locker. The Robe of Sorrows was hung up inside. He unhooked it and lifted it out. The material felt like damp velvet beneath his fingers.

“Do I put it on?” he asked. His voice wobbled. His heart thudded in his chest. He didn’t want to be going along with any of this, but every time he thought about resisting, the notion quickly slipped away.

“What do you think?” War snapped. He was wearing the breastplate over his usual leather armour now, and was pulling on a pair of thick leather gauntlets.

Drake’s arms, moving almost entirely of their own accord, slipped the Robe of Sorrows over his head.

“It’s too big,” he said.

A shiver ran down his spine as the black folds oozed and writhed across his skin. In moments, the robe was a perfect fit.

“Oh,” he said. “No, it isn’t.”

“Keep the hood down for now,” War told him. “No point putting it up until the big moment.”

Drake nodded. He didn’t want to put the hood up. He didn’t want to wear the thing at all. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What happens next?”

War closed his locker door with a
clang
. His breastplate gleamed. His leather gauntlets
creaked
as he flexed his fingers in and out. “I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me.”

“What? How should I know?”

“You said he was someone from your school. Did he tell you anything? Like what he was planning?”

“No,” Drake said. “Just that it was going to be something spectacular.”

“Aye, that sounds like him,” War said. “Bloody show-off. Anything else?”

“Not really. He had a smartphone thing. He pushed a button and said that was that, he’d started it all happening. Then Toxie appeared and attacked him.”

War slid his sword into the scabbard on his back. “Oh. So he’s dead?”

“He fought back,” Drake told him.

“Fought back? Against Toxie? Against a Hellhound?”

“Yeah,” Drake said with a shrug. “Seemed to be putting up a pretty good fight too.”

“What did you say his name was, this teacher?”

“Dr Black.”

War pulled a face that said the name meant nothing to him. “New, is he?”

“No, been there a while, I think.”

“Really? Interesting,” War said, stroking his beard. “Right, get the Deathblade and we’ll go and meet the others.”

“Where is it?” Drake asked.

“It’s there, in the locker.”

Drake looked inside the empty locker. “No, it isn’t.”

War was suddenly behind him. “It was there,” he growled. “I know it was there.”

“Well, it’s not there now,” Drake said.

War muttered something below his breath. “Doesn’t matter,” he said aloud. “We’ll make do without it. Let’s go and get the other two.”

Drake wanted to say ‘no’. He wanted to argue with the horseman, to convince him to call the whole thing off, but it was as if he were hypnotised. So, while he wanted to say ‘no’, what he actually said was: ‘OK.’

They left the locker room, then stopped abruptly when they saw the other two horsemen waiting for them.

“Ta-daa!” chimed Pestilence, holding out his arms. “What do you think?”

A stunned silence fell.

Pestilence looked like a violent encounter between a motorcyclist and a cowboy. On his bottom half he wore black leather chaps over his usual white trousers. Tassels dangled along the seams, swishing outwards when he turned to give the other horsemen a twirl.

His boots, which reached almost to his knees, were also leather, but shinier than the chaps. They finished with a large, square heel at the back, giving Pest another few centimetres in height.

The leather jacket he wore was studded across the shoulders. It hung open, revealing a black waistcoat underneath and, below that, a white roll-neck sweater.

There was a soft
creak
as Pestilence pulled on his cap. Also leather. Also studded, with a chain hanging across the front, just above the peak.

War, at last, found his voice.

“What... in the name of God... are you wearing?”

Pest looked down at his outfit. “What’s the matter with it?”

“That’s your official uniform, is it?” asked War, in the tones of someone who was a hair’s breadth away from the end of his tether.

“More or less,” Pest said. “I just sort of... zooshed it up a bit. It’s leather. Very practical, leather.”

War shook his head, then turned to Famine. He was still wearing the same faded grey tracksuit as before. “And what’s your story?” War asked.

“It doesn’t fit,” Famine said. “I can’t get the trousers past my knees. I ripped the backside right out of them trying to pull them on.”

“And what about the measuring scales? You’re supposed to appear carrying scales. It says so in the book.”

Famine looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I sort of sat on them.”

War’s forehead twitched. “You mean you broke them?”

“Not exactly, not exactly,” Famine said. “See, I was trying to pull the trousers on at the time, and I didn’t know the scales were on the seat, and, well...” His voice trailed off and he gave a wobbly shrug. “I could try to get them back, I suppose, but I might need a hand. And some sort of lubricant.”

Pest’s face went an interesting shade of green. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Great,” War growled, looking up to the ceiling. “Just great. You’ve lost your scythe, you’ve wedged your scales where the sun doesn’t shine and you…” he looked Pest up and down. “I don’t know where to start. Some bloody Apocalypse this is going to be.”

“Speaking of which, we’d best get a move on,” Pest said. He took a deep breath, then turned to Drake and positioned his mouth into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but was a good effort all the same. “You ready, then?”

Drake felt himself nod. The weight of thousands of years of expectation pushed down on him, smothering his will to resist. He was Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, and he had a job to do.

“Said your goodbyes to everyone?” pressed Pest. “You know, to your mum, and all that?”

“My mum?” Drake mumbled, as if confused by the word. Then his eyes went wide and his head went light, and like that, the spell was broken. “My mum! My mum’s going to die.
Everyone
is going to die!”

Drake’s breath came in big, shaky gulps, too fast for his lungs to cope with. “We can’t do this. We can’t go through with it. We can’t.”