The 13th Horseman (20 page)

“I can see your lips moving,” Drake said. “But all I can hear is this noise. Like the quacking of ducks.
Quack-quack-quack
.”

Sirens screamed just a few streets away. War looked over to the horses gathered together near Famine’s mobility scooter.

“We’d better get a shifty on,” he said. “Don’t want to be here when the Bobbies arrive.”

Drake crossed to Mel. She put her arms round him and they hugged until the sounds of the sirens were too close for comfort. “We’d better go,” he said. “Are we... OK?”

Mel looked up at the ice sculpture of a horse behind her. She looked back at Drake. “We’re OK,” she said, and then she kissed him for the third time that day. Not that he was counting.

They climbed on to the horse. War was already sitting on his, while Famine waddled across to his scooter. Only Pestilence remained behind.

“You coming?” Drake asked.

“Yeah, just a second,” Pest told them. He looked down at Mr Franks, pinned beneath the weight of the robotic battle suit. “Quick question,” Pestilence said brightly. “I was just wondering, with you being so clever and everything...”

He raised his gloveless hands and brought them closer to the teacher’s face. “Have you ever heard of Guinea Worm Disease?”

Drake felt Mel’s arms go round him. He placed his hands over hers, just as War took hold of his own horse’s reins.

“Ready?” the bearded giant asked.

“Ready,” said Drake. “Oh, but, I was thinking...”

War glared at him expectantly. “First time for everything, I suppose.”

“Next week sometime, once everything’s settled down, if you fancy – and if we don’t, you know, get cast into Hell for not doing our jobs properly – I thought that maybe we could, I dunno, go fishing?”

War looked off into the distance, as if suddenly able to see some previously unnoticed future spread out there, just beyond the horizon. “Aye,” he said, at last. “Why not?”

Then he dug in his heels, flicked the reins, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode across the sky and made their way home.

H
E LEAVES THE
plains of the afterlives behind and arrives like a dark, creeping fog in a neatly cropped circle of grass. It is midnight, the dead of night. This is not unusual. To him, it is
always
midnight.

A square construction stands before him. Although he has never seen this place before, he has felt it, sensed it, many times over.

The shed. At last, he has reached the shed. He has reached the moment of his destiny.

Like a drop of black oil he oozes across the grass, past the flowerpots and up to the entrance. His shape shifts, his living cloak wraps round his solidifying form, and a hand that is no more than bleached bone raps three times on the wooden door.

There is a sound from inside. A clatter and then a
thud
. A thin man appears, his body dressed in white, his hands clad in a thin second skin.

“Hello?” the man asks, surprised, but not shocked by his skeletal appearance. “What can I do you for?”

The words hiss out of their own accord. Words he has waited to speak since being brought into existence. Words he was created to speak.

I aaaammm Deeeeeaaathhh...

The thin-faced man looks him up and down. “Oh,” he says. “So
you’re
supposed to be... And he’s not...” The thin-faced man looks him up and down for a second time. “Oh. Well, this is awkward.”

There is another voice, loud and booming, from within the shed. “Hurry up, it’s your turn. Who is it?” the voice demands.

“It’s, um, a big skeleton thing,” the thin-faced man says, “says he’s Death.”

From inside the shed, there is silence, and then a muttering, and then, more clearly. “Tell him we’ve got one.”

The thin-faced man turns back to him and smiles apologetically. “Sorry,” he says, “we’ve already got one.”

And then, quietly but firmly, he closes the door.

Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2012

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk

1

Text copyright © Barry Hutchison 2012

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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ISBN: 978-0-00-744089-4

EPub Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780007440900