The 13th Horseman (17 page)

D
RAKE HAD PLANNED
to sneak up on to the roof, but Mr Franks was sitting in a deckchair, watching the hatch expectantly. He smiled broadly when Drake’s head popped through it.

“There he is!” Mr Franks beamed. “There’s the man of the hour. Up you come, join the fun.”

He jumped up as Drake stepped out on to the top of the robot’s head. “Take a seat,” Mr Franks said, gesturing at the deckchair the way a gameshow host’s glamorous assistant might gesture at today’s star prize.

“No, thanks,” Drake said.

Mr Franks put his hands on his hips and nodded. “You’re right, you’re right. What was I thinking? Sitting down?”

With a sudden jerk he grabbed the back of the folding chair and hurled it over the edge of the roof. “Boring people sit down, and we’re not boring people, are we, Drake? Huh? Am I right?” He looked Drake up and down. “Nice outfit, by the way. Black suits you.”

“Mel, are you OK?” Drake asked. He didn’t take his eyes off Mr Franks.

“She can’t answer you,” Mr Franks said. He indicated the gag across her mouth. “She can talk, your girlfriend, can’t she? She just would not shut up. It was either gag her, or cut her tongue out.”

“It’s going to be OK. I’m here to rescue you.”

“Aww, you hear that? He’s here to rescue you.” Mr Franks wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. “That – if you don’t mind me saying? – that’s beautiful.” He pointed at Drake and mimed shooting him with his finger. “You’re a real ladykiller.”

The teacher slipped his hands into his pockets and strolled over to a wooden table that had been bolted on to the metal beneath it. An old-fashioned-looking control deck, all knobs and dials and slider switches, hung over the edges of the table on all sides. A spaghetti of wires dangled from the back of the deck, before disappearing into a junction box beneath the table.

A large metal tube, about the circumference of a dinner plate and around half as tall as Mr Franks, rose from the floor beside the desk. A glass dome was mounted on top of the tube, like an upside-down fish bowl. Inside the glass, a living blue light pulsed and heaved.

“Like it?” Mr Franks asked. He pressed a hand against the glass and stroked it gently.

“What are you going to do with them?” Drake asked.

“With what, the souls?” Mr Franks said. He pointed at the glass. “With these souls trapped in here?”

“Yes, what are you going to do with them?”

Mr Franks jumped up and punched the air with his fist. “Then it
does
work!” he cried. “I couldn’t be sure because, you know, I can’t see souls any more, so I thought,
‘Who
can
see souls? Who can I get up here to let me know if this baby works?’ and there was only one name I thought of. Can you guess who it was?”

“Me,” said Drake. He felt his heart sink. “What now?”

“Now, I’m going to eat them.” His face split into a wicked grin and madness blazed behind his eyes. “And when I do, I’m going to get all my old strength back, and then... This is the best bit... Then I am going to split this world in two, Drake. I’m going to split it in two!”

“Why?”

“Why? I thought you, of all people, would know why.” He gestured up at the sky. “We’re in the Armageddon business, you and I. The end of the world – it’s our purpose.”

“Everyone will die.
Everyone
.”

Mr Franks nodded. “That’s the general idea. But listen, it’s nothing personal. I’m just following orders. It’s my job, after all.”

“
Was
your job,” Drake reminded him.

“Then consider me freelance.” His face darkened. “They told me I could end the world – they
created me
to end the world – and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’s right there, in my contract of employment. ‘Begin the Apocalypse.’ I’m only following orders. I’m just... bringing forward the schedule a little.”

“You’re going to decimate the world because you’re a
jobsworth
?”

“Not
decimate
, Drake. Didn’t your last school teach you anything? Decimate means reduce by ten per cent. I’m not going to decimate the world.” He couldn’t fight back a self-satisfied smile. “I’m going to
obliterate
it!”

Drake took a step forward. Mr Franks’ finger reached for a button on the control desk. “Ah, ah, ah!” he warned. “Look at the pole holding your girlfriend there. Check out the bottom, where it meets the roof.”

A bomb, that’s what Drake saw. He didn’t know how he knew it was a bomb, he just did. It had a certain bomby quality that was unmistakable. “Take another step and she falls,” Mr Franks told him. Drake shuffled back, and the teacher’s finger relaxed on the button.

He looked Drake up and down, as if seeing him for the very first time. “So, you’re the new Death, eh? You’re my replacement? I expected something a little more... impressive.”

“I guess they thought I was impressive enough to follow you,” Drake retorted.

“Ha!” said Mr Franks, without humour. “You think you even come close to matching me? I was Death for a thousand years. I was the longest-serving of all the Deaths.”

“Longest serving
so far
,” Drake said.

“You don’t still think you’re going to stop me, do you?” Mr Franks laughed. “I’ve been planning this for the last five hundred years, putting every element of it into position for the past six decades. I’ve thought of every last detail. What, you think giant robots build themselves?”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Drake said. “A giant robot? Isn’t that a bit, you know, crap?”

Something that may have been the beginnings of a cringe passed across the teacher’s face. “It was the fifties,” he explained. “Giant robots were all the rage.”

He took a step away from the control deck, thought better of it, then moved back into position beside it. “You know what it’s like, sitting around in that shed for a thousand years? No, of course you don’t, you’ve only been there a few days. Maybe you can imagine it, though. Their voices, everything they say, it just becomes this... noise in your head. Like the quacking of ducks. Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack.

“And then there’s the sound of Famine chewing, like some bloated, masticating cow, hour after hour, day after day, chomp, chomp, chomp, continually, on and on.”

Mr Franks shook his head, as if trying to drive out the memories. “Pestilence, with his constant whining and complaining and his itching and his flaking and his endless series of spectacular rashes. And War?”

The teacher’s voice had been rising throughout his rant. He stopped and brought it back under control. “God, I hated him most of all, strutting around, acting like he was the Big I Am.
I
was supposed to be the leader.
Me!
So why did they always listen to him?”

“Because you’re a friggin’ headcase?” Drake suggested. Fury flashed across Mr Franks’ face. He looked at Mel. His finger went to the switch on the control deck, but a shout from Drake made him hesitate. “Kill her and I’ll kill you!”

The teacher’s finger hovered above the button. “Kill me?” he said. “I don’t think you would.”

“I would,” Drake said. “I will. I’ve... I’ve killed before.”

Mr Franks smiled and shook his head, but his finger withdrew from the button. “No, you see,
me
, I’m a killer. I’ve killed hundreds of people in the past decade alone.
Thousands
. And why?”

He opened his mouth to answer his own question, then paused. “I don’t know, really,” he admitted. “Practice, I suppose. I am –
was
– Death, after all. And also because I was bored, and I couldn’t face one more bloody game of Cluedo.” He pointed at Drake. “You, on the other hand, have killed what? Half a dozen frogs?”

“Nine,” Drake corrected. “I killed nine frogs.”

Mr Franks clapped his hands slowly. “Bravo. Truly you are Death incarnate. But, please, let an old hand show you how it
should
be done.”

He pushed a slider switch on the control deck and the blue glow inside the dome became agitated. It buzzed and trembled, hurling itself at the glass, but unable to find a way through.

“There’s a whole world out there waiting to be destroyed,” Mr Franks said. “Let’s not keep it waiting any longer.”

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a large white napkin. He flicked it once to unfold it, then tied it loosely at the back of his neck. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, patting his stomach, “I’ve got a rather pressing lunch appointment.”

D
RAKE LOOKED OVER
at Mel, hanging above a sheer drop to certain death. He looked at Mr Franks, now adjusting switches and dials on his control deck, making the souls in the bowl quiver and writhe. The teacher hummed quietly below his breath as he worked, a song so ancient no other human alive had heard it.

Slowly, Drake slid one foot a few centimetres across the floor. The thudding of the robot’s footsteps had stopped, which meant that the robot itself had stopped. This was a pity because the sound of the footfalls would have disguised the faint
squeak
Drake’s own foot made as he inched it across the metal.

“One millimetre closer and your girlfriend drops,” Mr Franks told him. He looked up and fixed Drake with a glare. “You look tense. Relax.”

Drake slunk back a pace.

“You still don’t look relaxed. You look like someone who’s about to attempt a daring, last-minute rescue, and that would be stupid.”

Drake let his shoulders sag and his arms hang limply at his sides. He stuffed his hands into the robe’s deep pockets. “That better?”

“Much,” Mr Franks replied. He turned his attention back to the control deck. Beside him, the glass dome was filled with an angry blue fire. “I’m doing you a favour when you think about it, Drake. I’m giving you the opportunity to fulfil your purpose. An opportunity that was taken from me. You should be thanking me.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

Drake’s fingers brushed against something in his right pocket. He felt for the edges, trying to figure out what it was. Round. Hard. Then his finger pricked against something sharp and he knew at once what to do.

“Those frogs we were talking about,” he said, surprising Mr Franks and getting his attention.

“What about them?”

“You should’ve seen them. All trapped in that tank, stressing out, becoming more and more agitated. I could see they were scared. That’s why I did what I did.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Mr Franks said. “What’s your point?”

“I didn’t kill them on purpose. I let them go,” Drake said, “but they were too frightened. Too panicked. I tipped over the tank and they knocked over a Bunsen burner and do you know what happened next?”

“They all burned alive?”

“Well, yes, but before that,” Drake said. “Do you know what happened right before that?”

Mr Franks shook his head. “Go on.”

“Chaos,” said Drake. He pulled his hand from his pocket and brought it back sharply. “Complete and utter chaos.”

With a cry of triumph, Drake hurled the badge at the glass dome. The world seemed to lurch into slow motion as the words ‘I AM 4’ flipped, end over end over end, on a direct collision course with the glass.

Mr Franks’ reactions were quick, but not quick enough. He made a dive for the badge, but his fingers couldn’t quite find it. It passed by him and struck the soul bowl dead centre.

And then it bounced harmlessly off, and landed on the metal floor with a faint
chink
.

There was silence for a moment, broken only by a sharp, sudden laugh from Mr Franks. Drake searched his pockets, hoping to find something else to throw, but painfully aware that he wouldn’t.

“Wow!” Mr Franks cried. “What a throw! That was brilliant. Just
brilliant
! For a horrible moment there I thought it was actually going to work! I thought you were actually going to ruin everything.”

He chuckled and this time the tears he wiped from his eyes were genuine. “But no,” he said. “You blew it. Game over, kid. Nice try.”

Krik
.

The smile fell from Mr Franks’ face.

Ka-rick.

Drake watched as a hairline crack spread across the surface of the dome. Inside, the trapped souls were hurling themselves against the glass, pushing up and out in their panic to be free. It was the frogs all over again.

Ka-RACK
.

Mr Franks’ eyes went wide as the glass dome shattered. “Oh… crap,” he muttered, and then his world descended into chaos.

Drake could see the souls swooshing and swooping around the teacher, batting and buffeting him this way and that. The teacher, however, couldn’t see a thing. He flailed out wildly at invisible foes, throwing wild punches and wilder kicks that took him further and further away from the control deck.

Ducking a streaking blue orb, Drake crossed to the controls. He looked over them, trying to figure out what all the buttons and dials and switches and faders and knobs actually did. He could feel Mel’s eyes on him, wide open and terrified. He would get her down. In just a few seconds, he would get her down, and she would be safe. But first...

He had to read all the labels three times before his racing brain found the one it was looking for. He flicked a little black switch. There was a sound like a faint sigh, and a sudden wind pushed him back from the control deck.

“The barrier!” Mr Franks wailed. He swatted at where he thought a soul might be and stumbled across to the desk, the wind shoving hard at his back. “What have you done to my barrier?”

Drake ducked against the howling winds and raced to reach the controls before the teacher did. He had to protect the switch, had to prevent Mr Franks from reactivating the force field.

With a cry of triumph, Drake’s hand clamped down over the switch, blocking it from the teacher’s reach. His victory was short-lived, though, when he realised that Mr Franks hadn’t been going for
that
button.

There was a
click
.

There was a
bang
.

There was a
scream
.

And the metal rod, with Mel attached, detached from the roof and disappeared over the edge.

“No!” Drake bellowed as, without a second thought, he rushed to the edge and hurled himself after her.

The air roared in his ears, louder than anything he’d ever heard in his life. He plummeted head-first, his arms tucked in by his sides, his feet pointed back up towards the roof so as to make his body as streamlined as possible.

Mel had fallen free of the pole she had been tied to. She twisted and spun through the air, flipping and twirling as she plunged towards a very messy death on the hard ground below.

Ever so slowly, the gap between them was closing. Drake felt a surge of hope.
I’m going to make it,
he thought.
I’m going to make it!

“He’s not going to make it,” Pest yelped. “He’s not going to make it!”

He and the other horsemen had seen the flicker as the barrier had fallen, then heard the blast, way up high, as the bomb at the base of Mel’s pole had detonated. They had seen her fall, and had watched as Drake launched himself after her. The gap between the distant falling figures was narrowing. It was definitely narrowing.

But it wasn’t narrowing quickly enough.

Drake plunged. The ground was racing up to meet Mel. She’d never survive the fall. He wasn’t even sure if he would, but at least he had a fighting chance. He had to reach her, had to catch her, but with each metre that passed the chances of him doing that grew smaller and smaller.

He brought his arms out in front of him, hands together above his head, so his body almost formed the shape of a missile. The robe billowed out behind him like the cape of some dark, avenging superhero.

The robe. The robe was slowing him down!

Wriggling furiously, he untangled himself from the heavy cloak. It fluttered upwards as the wind caught it, and Drake felt himself speed up. The whistling air stung his eyes as the gap between him and Mel began to close more rapidly.

His grasping fingers brushed against her clothes. His arms went round her. He pulled her in close, twisted until he was beneath her and then, with a
boom
, they both hit the ground.