The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh. (7 page)

My head felt all foggy, as if I was about to catch a bad case of the flu, or similar to the first few moments in the morning when you just wake up. It wasn’t exactly a headache, but something seemed off kilter. But then I don’t normally spend the night stretched out in cold water.

Twenty minutes later I sat at my old kitchen table, chewing on overcooked eggs, the yoke all hard. I preferred them runny, ‘sunny side up,’ as the saying goes, but I had been staring out the kitchen window, in a daze and lost track of how long they had been frying for. There were also a few slices of honey roast ham and pineapple cottage cheese, along with some slices of onion bread. A mishmash of what needed eating before it expired. I washed it down with single malt whisky. So unlike me to drink so early, but after everything that had happened and was still happening, I decided I wanted it. Needed it. Maybe my fuzzy head was a slight hangover?

I took my time washing up, having nothing in particular to do. Then as I was walking back through the front room I noticed the pair of cheap red high heel shoes. Images of the old used woman flashed before my eyes. “Sick,” I muttered as I picked them up. Then I noticed they had blood running down there sides. Now all congealed and brick red in colour.

I hadn’t noticed the blood from the night before. The shoes were red and I tried not to concentrate too hard on anything she was wearing – or more to the point – what she hadn’t been wearing. I most probably just missed it.

Then it dawned on me that the fire was still burning away in the hearth. Not the few scattered ashes that should have been there, but a blazing fire. And come to think of it, I couldn’t even remember lighting it the day before.

I still needed sleep I realized. Everything was becoming too much for me. Too little sleep along with unusual happenings, and not eating properly. I was possibly coming down with a cold or some kind of virus. Or the worst of all – man flu.

Looking across the room I realized the whisky bottle was half empty. Normally a bottle that size would last me over a year. It had gone right down in a couple days.

I tossed the pair of shoes into the fire, turned and headed upstairs. Yes, sleep would be great, just what my body needed – demanded. Sleep would sort my head out.

My bedroom was the farmhouses master bedroom, a high-ceilinged room with thick original rafters. A large old wooden window looked over the Moor’s, with a panoramic view that stretched for miles to the distant hills. Apart from today, everything outside was a blurry grey-white – the snow making visibility mere meters not miles.

Lying down on my large antique four-poster bed, which came with the farmhouse (I kept the bulky frame but replaced the mattress) I snuggled up under my eight blankets (I hate duvets, how they left cold air pockets where they didn’t fall around the body) to enjoy a few hours of shuteye. I pulled the thick blankets up over my head and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. Whenever I felt unwell, sleep was always the answer, as if my body simply shutdown when ill.

I awoke to the sound of the front door being hammered on. How long had the banging been ringing through my house? I had no idea.

I jumped up, catching a look in the mirror as I passed. Shock! I was wearing the same jumper from the night before. A large bloody handprint slapped on my chest. I stared not believing as the banging continued. I pulled it off, throwing it into the bedrooms corner, and ran down the stairs two at a time. My mind still confused from just waking from a deep sleep.

I stood before the banging door, taking beep breathes to come to my senses. I ran my fingers through my hair and down my face, realizing I hadn’t shaved in days. “Later,” I mumbled.

I slowly turned the handle.

“What the fuck took you so long? What were you doing, wanking or something…? Jackass!” the annoyed high-pitched nasal voice said.

I looked down into the glassy, bulging bloodshot eyes of an angry nine-year old boy, who stood on my doorstep in his rumpled pyjamas.

Child’s Play

I
stood agape as the youngster walked past heading for the chair. He looked like any child I had ever seen. He was wearing Transformer pyjamas – Bumblebee splashed across the front – with oversized Homer Simpson slippers on. Of course I didn’t have to look outside; I knew there would be no scuffed footprints.

His limbs were slightly too thin for a child of nine, and he seemed slightly emaciated. His hair was all unruly, as if just having been awoken from a deep troubled sleep. But what was most unsettling was the marks around his thin, once fragile, neck.

First I thought it looked like a rope had been wrapped around, possibly from when he tried to jump to his death from the banisters. I heard even young children tried to end their lives these days. That’s the twenty-first century for you. Some would call it progress, a people so well-educated that they can decide their life isn’t worth living even from an early age. Or it could have been pressure from bullies at school. Children can be so simple and yet so cruel at the same time.

But as I closed the door and moved closer I noticed it didn’t look like a rope ligature – not that I’m an expert – rather, it looked like he had been choked to death, so violently it had split the skin asunder.

He sat in the chair, legs tucked up, but I don’t think they would reach the floor even if he hung them over the chairs edge. His head didn’t quite reach the top of the high leather seat.

Like the other two, he was also smoking. I noticed for the first time the red and white packet of Marlboros just visible though the thin material of his pyjamas top pocket. I always wondered why pyjamas had pockets on the chest. Now I know.

His small eyebrows were drawn together, scolding me.

“What the fuck took you so long? I stood out there for ten minutes.”

First I was shocked at hearing such a small child using profanity twice in a matter of a few minutes. I don’t know why it upset me so, knowing that it wasn’t really a small child sat before me, just an empty shell occupied by something else. I now realized that he used certain characteristics of the person he took. Like some sort of residue leftover from them. Their draining life force? I had no idea.

“Don’t swear.” I found myself saying.

I knew children were terrible for swearing. My own two nieces, who are eight and twelve, swore like state-troopers. Supposedly picking it up from school – my older sister said. Even though she swore at them constantly, never once thinking it was because of her they spoke that way.

Instantly I was rewarded by his evil Cheshire cat grin. Suddenly his expression changed to an innocent look, making his face appear almost angelic. His head lowered, hands held together, he started muttering with the cigarette still in his mouth, “Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.” Then he gave a loud snort of disgust. “Better?” he asked. “Whatever chokes your fucking chicken,” he said removing the fag butt.

He was already on his second cigarette. But he didn’t use anything as an ashtray; he simply flicked the ash onto the rug.

“And for your information, saying that Minor Doxology makes me feel like I’ve been throat raped!”

What the hell
, I thought.

“You look like shit,” he said matter-of-fact, changing the topic of conversation in an instant.

I didn’t bother to answer. It was a statement not a question. I sat opposite clicking on the small minicorder. It then dawned on me that I hadn’t heard the tape from the night before.

When I looked up he had one finger right up his small nose, oblivious to the fact I was watching him. He rolled it and flicked it into the fire.

“Nice shoes,” he commented.

Not comprehending what he was talking about – knowing the shoes had been thrown in hours ago – I looked into the dancing flames. The pair of red shoes were just sat there, flames licking all around them, untouched – the red plastic coating was all still unaffected, as was the blood.

I wiped sweat from my forehead.
Hungry
I thought. A drop of whisky wouldn’t go amiss.

“So let get on with it shall we?” he said, sucking deeply on the cigarette with his small thin blue lips.

I looked up, noticing for the first time that smoke was trailing out from the deep wounds around his ripped throat. A few bubbles of blood popped.

He noticed what I was staring at.

“I know,” he said, lifting the cigarette up between small fragile fingers, which seemed to have colourful felt-tip pen marks all over them. “These things will kill me.” He laughed, giving off a childish giggle, his feet kicking the chair at his joke.

I ignored him. I leant forward and checked on the tape recorder. Still the same side of the first tape.

This seemed to bring him around. His small features now composed, bringing a concentrated look to his childish face, brows creasing together making him look much older, a worried look that his years shouldn’t have known. He looked up at the ceiling, while drawing hard on the cigarette that seemed out of proportion to his small now greying face.

“Where was I?” he seemed to ask himself. Crossing one small arm over the other. “Ah, yes. Eve.” He soon had his hand back towards his mouth. “As I was saying it was because of her many of us fell. If you want to use that word.” Another cigarette from the packet in his small breast pocket.

“Of course they had gone against His wishes. Every tree in the garden they could eat from until their fill. But from the Tree of Good and Bad they were not to eat.” He started his childish giggling again. “Of course He knew what they had done. Knows all things. Omnipresent you know.”

I simply nodded. Engrossed at such a simply story that I had heard hundreds of times before, but this small figure seemed to give it a new air. I was captivated.

“He went down and went walking among the trees. Seeing how they would both react. They hid from Him. Thinking that mere leaves and twigs would hide their presence. He asked why they were hiding. They simply stated that they were embarrassed because of being naked.” Once again he giggled at using the word naked, his spasmodic laugh shaking his small body.

“He wanted to know how they knew they were naked.
‘Because of the Tree,’
they had simply said.” The smile returned. “Then the shit really hit the fan – as the saying goes.

“They were thrown out of the Paradise. He made them furs to cover their private parts. From the sweat of their brows they were now to work. Turn the unfruitful ground into wheat for bread. Up until then everything was provided for them. Now they had to work to eat. No state benefits back then,” he giggled.

I needed the toilet but didn’t move. I was, as I said before, engrossed. Almost as if I was being hypnotized.

“Now they were imperfect. Before they disobeyed they would have lived forever. Perfect, not growing old and suffering. But they disobeyed the only rule that had been set up for them. They began to grow old. He had drawn His power away from them.” He turned around trying to make himself more comfy, kicking off his two oversized Homer slippers to the Turkish carpet.

“See if they had done as they were asked things would’ve been different. For them and everyone else.” He waved his hands around. I knew he meant mankind in general.

“But they had sinned – lost perfection. No children had come along yet. If they had things might have turned out differently. But they were imperfect, so their children would be also. Like a jellymould, once it’s been hit,” he jerked his small hand in a violent gesture sprinkling ash everywhere, “then all others after it would have the dent. All imperfect.

“Their rutting and grunting eventually produced more little naked creatures. Cain and Able soon came along. Like themselves, imperfect, dying from the instant they emerged from between Eves legs. The one thing all mankind have in common – death. My gift.”

He stared at me for a full minute. “Cain! Get it?” He was of course referring to my last name. I ignored the comment. He gave another snort and continued.

“They had now drawn away from Him. They could feel and see themselves getting old. Like an electric fan they had been unplugged from His power source. For a while it kept spinning, but inevitably it runs out. Old age took them, as it takes you all.” That sadistic grin.

“I was cursed to crawl on my belly. But I had yet to be thrown out of heaven. I still appeared now and then to cause more trouble. Raise more questions many others were thinking but didn’t voice. I simply used the gift He had endowed us with – free will.

“That’s when my name was changed. I was now called Satan; meaning resister, and Devil; which means slanderer.” He shook his head sadly. His face hid behind a cloud of swirling smoke. “I was once referred to as The Highest of all Angels. The Morning Star. The Brightest in the Sky.” A tear ran down his cheek. “I gave my heavenly name to my first born son.”

A son? This intrigued me, but I didn’t want to interrupt him. I knew he would tell me in time.

“People don’t seem to grasp that I was a perfect angel like all the others. Made the same, all the same feelings. Tens of millions of us standing around watching His creation. Some of us wanted more, needed more. I simply made that obvious. The fact that many more joined me proved this fact. He was paying more attention to His new earthly creations, we were old news.

“That also brings up many other questions. Where did Fire and Brimstone come from? Hell? And it’s a long story, everything in its proper place.” He started coughing. The small lungs to fragile to be taking in so much unfiltered smoke. He soon recovered. Cigarette straight back in his small blue lipped mouth, which was now starting to peel around his upturned grin.