THE END OF THE WORLD - (I.P.)

“It’s the end of the world as we know it….” Perhaps the most evocative phrase known to man, and indeed it is to “man” the phrase refers. Be it nuclear holocaust, as so nearly came to pass in 1962 with the Cuban missile crisis, or in a welter of famine, floods and pestilence as a result of global warming, it is the human race that will end; the earth itself will continue.

But there, alas, the use of the future tense is misleading in the extreme and for that I apologise, for the end has already come. Such a big thing to comprehend, yet so few words needed to say it: the end has already come. It was not global conflict that brought humankind to the very edge of extinction, nor was it global warming. Instead, like the one falling pebble that leads to a rockslide that destroys the side of a mountain, like the popped rivet that brings a fully laden passenger jet tumbling from the sky, like the miniscule drop of water squeezing through the tiniest of cracks in the front wall of a dam that is soon to burst, the calamity that wiped out virtually the entire population of the world began with the actions of just one man.

That was all it took, one man, one mere mortal. Add to that the vengeful spirit of a second man whose mortality had so very recently been realised and flavour it with the evil machinations of one who is, to all intents and purposes, immortal you have the recipe for annihilation.

The mortal man was Jim Donovan, a New York detective more evil than the criminals he was charged with policing. In life the vengeful spirit was Chad Pemberton-Smythe, a New York socialite and champion chess player convicted and executed, following some sterling police work by Detective Donovan, for the brutal slaying of his wife Felicity. Donovan had no qualms about sending Chad to the chair, not (as you might think) because he was certain he had the right man, rather because he knew beyond doubt that the executed man was innocent. How did he know? Why was this terrible injustice so pleasing to him? Simple: Donovan himself had killed Felicity Pemberton-Smythe.

The immortal, as I expect you already know, was Satan. He made Chad a deal, one the dead man, blinded by his need for vengeance, was only to eager to accept. The Devil would grant Chad the opportunity to come back to this world in order to kill the Detective. There was of course more to the deal than that but Chad had no interest in the details. Unfortunately “the details” involved the now dead detective taking similar vengeance on two people who had offended him. Between them those two would then do the same to four people who in turn had offended them. These four would kill eight more, who would kill sixteen, who would kill thirty-two and so on. Due to the magic of exponential growth, as demonstrated in the story of Sissa ibn Dahir, the tyrant King Shiram and the pieces of grain on a chessboard, the entire population of the world would be wiped out before the cycle had repeated itself thirty-three times.

In a setback to Satan’s plans it became apparent that there were people in this world who had not offended anyone and as such would not fall prey to the increasing army of vengeful ghosts slaughtering their fellow men. The young, the innocent, those divorced from the world. To counter this threat the Devil recruited an imprisoned serial killer called Peter Wright, giving him the whole world as his kingdom and the remaining human population to rule as he saw fit.

Where in all this, you may ask, was God? In yet another setback for the Devil God did some recruiting of his own. Benedict Cross had been taken from his mother straight after he was born and was raised in isolation by a monk. As such he had grown to manhood offending nobody. Thus immune to the Devil’s plan he was tasked by God to assassinate Peter Wright, the King of this new world. Benedict had carried out his divine task, even though his target turned out to be his own twin brother.

All that was seventeen years ago. There is a new “King of the World” and he still bows down to the Devil. He like, Peter Wright before him, had been saved from the murderous plague of vengeance by Satan himself. Aided by a small army of others similarly saved he ruled over mankind, subjugating the Innocents to his rule. Some he converted to his cause while others, refusing to bend, were imprisoned or used as slave labour. Some, however, lived beyond his rule and his grasp, existing in the shadows, living such life as they could, offending nobody, albeit that to the King and his master their mere existence was an offence in itself.

Not that Satan is in a position to do anything about it. The King may bow before the Devil, but the Devil is powerless to intercede further in the affairs of men. His strength was derived from the mortals who followed him, directly through covert worship or indirectly through the committing of sinful acts. So few people now remain in the world he is powerless to leave the realm of Hell; saving the original king and his followers from the army of vengeful spirits he himself had set in motion had drained the last of his power. Unfortunately for the other survivors God was likewise powerless to intervene. Satan was trapped within his halls, God could not pass beyond his heavenly gates; the remnants of Man were on their own.

How do I know all this? It was told to me by Benedict Cross himself, mere hours after he had shot his brother; Benedict heard it from God’s own lips. What of Benedict? He had gone through life offending no-one, thus was he chosen for his holy task. Unfortunately that task, once completed, left him open to the vengeance of his dead twin brother. Less than twenty-four hours later the vengeful ghost of Peter Wright came to take Benedict’s life. God had told Benedict that Peter would come; he’d also told him there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Even though I was there at the time there was nothing I could do either; what use is a five year old girl against a ghost? To this day I remember kneeling over Benedict’s lifeless body, tears streaming down my face as the shade of Peter Wright, having lingered for a while, slowly dissolved into nothing. You may think it was just my imagination but as he faded away I swear ghostly tears glistened upon his spectral cheeks. I think Benedict would have been relieved.

So now I’m twenty-two and the leader of a small band of the Innocents who have hidden away in London ever since. When the end came the Greater London postal district held over three million domestic residences. Add to that all the office buildings, retail premises, schools, churches, hospitals, cinemas etc that is a lot of places for a band of outlaws to hide.

It was hoped the assassination of Peter Wright would lead to a civil war amongst his followers that would lead to a war of mutual annihilation. The plan worked only so far, vicious in-fighting in support of the various would-be successors to the Kingship drastically reduced their numbers but a new King, as I said earlier, arose to take control. With so few followers and so many places to look the search for the Innocents has been a long and difficult task.

So it was the group under my leadership remained free and relatively safe in the very city from whence the King governs his world wide kingdom. While it is true to say that neither Man’s technology nor the power of nature brought about “the end of the world of as we know it”, the steady decline of one and the increasing influence of the other is beginning to have a drastic effect on the lives of the survivors. The Thames Barrier failed twelve years ago; that year and every year since massive spring tides have engulfed much of the city, each successive flood expanding the waters ever outward to become an inland sea that has gradually taken over London.

For all of us in my small group London was the only place we’d ever called home. While we remained there we could still cling onto the comfort of our old lives, we could draw strength from how things used to be. For a while we moved around in the areas of the city still untouched by the floods, but the number of places to hide was rapidly decreasing, likewise the number of places the King needed to search.

Three weeks ago we were very nearly caught. A detachment of troops searched the area in which we were hiding; they came within two houses of where we lay trembling in the shadows before encroaching darkness enforced their return to barracks. The decision to leave the place we knew was taken quickly and decisively; London was no longer safe. Not so easy was my decision to stay, eyes and ears were needed for as long as the King, his government and his troops remain.

So it was two days ago with a heavy heart I accompanied my small band of Innocents to the edge of west London’s urban sprawl. At my back, eastwards, the long abandoned office blocks of Uxbridge stood out against the lightening sky like giant gravestones, as if to mark Man’s passing; away in the west the Chiltern’s slowly coalesced from the darkness. Wordlessly I hugged my former companions one more time before they turned their backs on London forever.

I began this tale by quoting one well worn phrase so it is only fitting I end it with another:

“And with that, they took to the hills.”
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COPYRIGHT DM PAMMENT 9th AUGUST 2010