The Devils Harvest: The End Of All Flesh Part 2

That would eventually be taken out of my hands.

The day pa.s.sed slowly. It always does when you're waiting for something, someone. Time seems to stretch. But evening came; there was no stopping it.

I had everything ready. My trusty Sony minicorder resting on the table that I had placed next to my chair. A new spiral notepad and a simple black Bic ballpoint pen.

I found as I watched the clock hands slowly make there journey around the clock face that my hands had started to shake. In antic.i.p.ation, or fear? I had no idea. Possibly too much caffeine.

I hadn't eating anything since my brunch, or rabbit food, whatever you want to call it. And I had so much coffee inside me that if I made any sudden movements I could hear it slurping about. But no more alcohol tonight, I needed to keep my wits about me. But I would break that promise all too soon.

It was now dark outside. Of course it had been getting dark since around three o'clock. Short days and long night this time of year. It was also blowing a gale. I had to step outside the front door and shovelled the snow away that was building up, making a small clearing so he could reach my doorstep. Not that I think he needed my help.

Several times while waiting I stood inside the parlour, the light around the back being on, my eyes fixed on the oval long mound poking up though the white snow. But it was still there. The bright halogen light reflecting off its sides, which was growing by the hour, more snow piling up, rounding off its edges making it look like just another bulge in the ground.

I found myself pacing back and forth around the large sitting room, then back into the kitchen. Once or twice having to go to the bathroom and empty my slos.h.i.+ng bladder. It was at that time I noticed I was still in the clothes I was wearing from the night before, having eventually falling asleep in them and not changing since arising this morning. I hadn't even brushed my hair or shaved. I looked a complete mess.

I now stood in my small downstairs toilet. Just a toilet and a sink, with an age misted mirror hanging above on a single nail. I ran the water, running the toothbrush over my teeth, and then splas.h.i.+ng some water over my face and hair. With a shaking hand I brushed my light brown hair into some semblance of order. I still looked a mess. But some how I didn't think my visitor would mind that much.

Sudden realization hit me I was waiting for the devil to knock on my door. The devil! A couple of days ago I would have scoffed at his very existence.

I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, reaching my large master bedroom, trying to distract my thoughts. I pulled off my crumpled jumper and s.h.i.+rt; I pulled on a clean one from the drawer ignoring the rancid smell of unwashed armpits in the process. A quick swipe of Vaseline for Men underarm deodorant took care of that.

It was while I was debating whether to change my trousers when the banging on the front door started. It was slightly softer than the night before, but still the same horrid tune. It sounded like the death march.

One quick glance in a hammered metal edged full length mirror which I had brought in Porto Rico I proceeded down the wide twisting (creaking) stairs, which came down into a large open area, with the kitchen, scullery (also with a door leading down into a large, freezing, root cellar) and dinning room to the left, and the main large front room, drawing room, and a toilet with a separate bathroom to the right. I headed into the front room, and across the old worn Turkish carpet and to the thick oak front door. I fumbled with the catches and swung the door open with more force than I intended. I still received a shock. Standing at the door was a woman, in her late forties. Dressed like a cheap hooker with no coat against the numbing cold. And what she was wearing promised considerable frostbite.

3.

That Smile I stood aside as she walked past. Her cheap high heels tapping against the wooden floor, until she reached the carpet that I had brought on the spur of the moment while on holiday in Istanbul, once she reached it the tapping was dulled out.

This time I closed the door myself, but not before I noticed that once again no footprints made there way to my doorstep. In fact, while I had been wandering around my home, changing and doing last minute jobs, the heavy snow outside had built up again, until the point where there was only a small section outside my door free, because of the overhang. A couple foot away the snow piled right up, and there was no evidence that someone had climbed over it. And besides, how do you walk in deep snow in high heels?

When I turned she was sat in the same seat, already reaching into the confines of her top, feeling around inside her large sagging bra, looking for her pack of Lucky Strike Original Red, or Luckies as they are often called. I hadn't seen a pack outside of America, certainly not in England. I wondered where she had got them from?

I suddenly felt untidy. Even though he had chosen, for some reason, to appear in the guise of a woman tonight, I felt underdressed, as if he was trying to make some point.

She sat there quietly. Legs crossed. The skintight black fake leather dress riding even further up her thighs if that was possible. Cigarette held loosely in her long fake plastic nailed grasp. A few of her fingers had no fake nails, as if being ripped off in a struggle.

Was there a particular reason why he had picked the form of a female to appear tonight? I could only guess at his dark twisted reasoning. Now I know he most likely had no choice. She was probably all that was available.

But I knew it was the same ent.i.ty that was sat before me from the night before because of that smile. The old Ches.h.i.+re cat had returned. A smile twisting her old tired features right to there limit. Her dull-yellowed teeth glowing from the light of the roaring fire that was burning in the grate.

I studied her body. She had seen too much pleasure in her lifetime. Now it had turned her once taught young body in to an old used sack skin hanging in places it shouldn't. Her self-respect had gone long ago. Now she had to choose dark alleys, old men, still making the money. Until whatever it was had taken her, and she now sat before me as a host for something far more sinister and powerful.

I slowly made my way across the room. Somehow she seemed far more terrifying than the man in the black suit from the night before. You always heard stories about him turning up in a black suit; folklore tales were full of such happenings. But using the dead body of a washed out hooker?

Then it dawned on me that I would be dragging her body outside in the cold blistering wind, placing her beside the black suited man. Then awaking tomorrow to check that yes, there was two mounds besides my falling down shed. Her voice brought me back to the moment at hand.

"Shall we commence?" She lit another cigarette from the b.u.t.t of the last.

"I see you are prepared," she stated, not taking her eyes off me, but rather pointing the smouldering red end of her cigarette at the small table that was nestled beside me. The same one I had kicked over from the night before, but now the useless telephone sat on a George II oak low boy table between a pair of 19th Century Bohemian gla.s.s overlay vases.

I didn't answer. I simply lifted the minicorder and motioned it towards her.

"By all means, please do," her husky used voice said. The kind of voice transvest.i.tes would give their left leg for a voice of far too many cigarettes and heavy-handed customers, and possibly an a.s.sortment of illegal drugs.

I snapped on the record b.u.t.ton, rea.s.sured by the blinking little red light. I placed it softly on the early 19th century mahogany square cellarette that I used as a small table, facing it in her direction. She cleared her throat, making a throaty noise before spitting a big glob of yellow phlegm into the fire. She then stirred in her seat, making her flabby thighs a little bit more comfy. Then she began: "My story is a long one, traversing time unlike anything you have ever known. My age you cannot even begin to imagine. You simply judge time by the rotation of your small inconsequential planet, twenty-four hours, a day. A simple planet. There were hundreds of billions He could have chosen from." She flicked the wrist holding the cigarette in a dismissive gesture. "But you already know that from the Drake Equation. N equals R-star, dot fp dot ne dot fl dot fi dot fc dot L, and all that s.h.i.+t."

She shrugged a shoulder. "But I was created long before time meant anything. Long before this ball of spinning dirt was even conceived.

"I will lay my story out before you, for you to write down in your own fas.h.i.+on. I will tell of the beginning of the universe, creation of mankind itself, and where I play in all these roles. How I changed the course of history and life itself. How I condemned mankind to suffering and torment by simply raising small insignificant questions." When she said insignificant, she twitched, and I got the impression the word insignificant would be the last word she should of used. She continued undaunted: "And how I played the part in getting not only myself, but thousands of other angels thrown out of the heavens, unable to ever return to stand before His presence. The four corners of earth now being our playground, our prison.

"Also not forgetting our adulterous habits that created giants among men; one of the many reasons why He sent the flood to sweep away an unruly world, an unthankful creation.

"All about His nation of Israel, and how I continually turned them away from Him, up until the point where He sent His only-begotten son His first of all creation Jesus, to earth to undo everything that I had been working towards for thousands of years." A twisted smile played across her lips.

"How I had mankind kill his most precious. Destroying their very means of salvation.

"So much to impart. So much to say, and so little time in which to say it all." She gave a long ragged sigh, spittle flicking from her red painted lips.

"But alas, everything in its proper place." She seemed to shake herself down and rise a little in the seat. She sat with one arm across her stomach, cradling her sagging b.r.e.a.s.t.s, with her other arms elbow in the palm of her hand, as if her arm was to weak to support the cigarette.

"Time for the story to being and where it rightfully should, at the beginning." A long deep suck on her cigarette, as if drawing strength from it. She then said, "In the beginning." She gave a mocking laugh, spluttering smoke and spit across to where I sat. "I always did like that part.

"He created the Heavens and the Earth." She spat out the word He, as always looking up towards the ceiling when she said the word.

"He created us all. All powerful. All beautiful. Myself along with all the other attractive angels that stands around His glorious personage." She lit another Lucky Strike, inhaled deeply and gave a long sigh. She picked a fleck of skin off her scabby lip.

"See I'm not what people think. Tall biped, red skin, broad wings like a bat and a wicked forked tail. No, the Book " she always refers to it as the Book; of course she meant the bible "says He created all things and it's true. Do you think He would create something as vile as that? No of course not. It's just one of my many transfigurations. In this story you will hear of many.

"I was as beautiful as all the others. And still am, I might add. No, those images I created to make myself seem fiercer. It's hard to demand respect looking like a playgirl model. Would anyone take me seriously looking like Brat Pitt? I think not. I needed a commanding form, so I simply created one."

She scratched an itch on top of her left breast. Her long artificial red nails leaving raked channels in her greying, flaking skin. No blood ran from the deep wounds that had congealed hours ago.

"I influenced the mind of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in his famous works Inferno, who got his inspiration from another of my creations, like the mythological Greek G.o.d Pan; which in turn influenced the minds of the medieval artists of the time.

'The Father of the Original Sin they call me. The Original Liar.'" She made an attempt at a laugh. It sounded like a pack of kittens being drowned in a cloth sack.

"So many names... so many." Her head slowly shook from side to side.

"I had a great position. Not envied, because of course they don't envy anything," she said looking upwards once again, as if there was a group sitting on the roof listening. For all I knew there could've been. Nothing could surprise me now. Many spirit people could be crammed into the very room where we sat, listening to her discourse and I would be none the wiser.

"I watched as the worlds became reality. Great cheers arising from tens of millions of angelic throats at His accomplishments. Of course I joined in, what else could I do? But even then something didn't seem right. Something off kilter. Something not meant to happen... Jealousy!" She stirred, as if the words were affecting her in a way I couldn't begin to understand. Then again how could I possibly conceive everything this ent.i.ty has been through?

"We were all made unique different. Just like mankind, no two of you the same. Likewise even with hundreds of millions of us up there, no two of us were alike. But one thing we all had in common was free will." She flicked one of her high heel shoe downwards, catching it on her toes, swinging the gaudy bright red plastic coated shoe back and forth, revealing holes in the soles of her stockings, and a dirty sole to her blistered foot. Too much street walking looking for customers?

"All of us had that precious gift. Also like mankind. You yourself," she said waving her glowing cigarette in my direction. "You could have been anything you wanted to be. A serial killer, a rapist, a paedophile, a politician, a pianist, an artist, but you chose to be a writer. The beauty of free will." She continued: "I saw many wonderful things. Many amazing new things all brought into being by His power and might. Whole worlds being brought together out of the cosmic dust. Galaxies cluttering around each other like a string of precious jewels." She wiped dribble coming from her nose, giving a loud unladylike snort, before coughing at the back of her throat, then swallowing loudly.

The story reminded me of all those long Sunday afternoons, sitting at the back of the Sunday School cla.s.sroom. I thought I was daydreaming. Staring at Jane Gilmore's back, admiring her growing body. But some of it must have struck home because some of what she was talking about registered somewhere deep inside me. Maybe it was all buried deep in my subconsciousness.

I could also see the hooker's body was slowly changing to a greyish putrid green. Skin beginning to peel, lank unnaturally blond hair with over an inch of jet-black hair at the roots, starting to fall over her uncovered bruised shoulders. She didn't bother to hide the large unsightly love bites anymore. An advertis.e.m.e.nt to her profession the oldest profession there was. Or it could have been marks of her death. I couldn't tell and didn't want to stare too closely.

After my first inspection of her I tried to keep my eyes averted slightly to one side, never staring straight into those gla.s.sy eyes. Eyes that seemed to be constantly s.h.i.+fting, one minute clear registering eyes drinking in their surroundings, then they would suddenly gla.s.s over, unseeing, dilated the eyes of a corpse.

"That's when it happened," she continued; bringing me back to the moment at hand. "Man. Man came into being. He wanted a perfect world, a perfect subject to have and control, to rear in His perfect ways. He had His spirit creatures, but now He wanted something different, something to fill the worlds He had created. They wouldn't have the same abilities as us, who watched from above, but they would still have qualities like us. One was immortality." She coughed. "I soon put a stop to that, for now," she said. "But as I already said, everything in its place.

"He said: 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.' Who do you think He was talking to? Us, His angelic children." She gave a small laugh, which turned into a coughing fit.

"At first all the animals were brought to man. Adam he was called. Adam gave all the beasts of the field names, the flying creatures of the heavens, all the crawling creatures. Everything that moved upon the earth. But nothing was found for him to be his partner. A complement for him. For His perfect little Adam." She said Adam's name in a mocking tone, as if everything that had happened was in someway Adam's fault.

"Until He had a deep sleep fall upon His little pet. He took Adam's rib bone to make a perfect companion." She took on a flat monotone voice. "See, it was a rib bone for certain reasons. Couldn't possibly be from the foot or leg because that would mean being beneath his feet. Couldn't possibly be from his head because that would mean she was lording it over him. No, it was taken from his chest, next to his heart, so they could be equal." Once again the mocking laugh that put my teeth on edge and for some reason made the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end. Was it a primal instinct, set in my DNA, a warning that a predator is nearby?

"And what did little Adam say when this perfect woman was placed before him? 'This is at last bone of my bones. And flesh of my flesh. This one will be called woman because from man this one was taken.' The cretin," she said.

I picked up the new spiral notebook. And I noticed mud under my nails. I tried to think where it could have come from, but dismissed it, thinking it was when I dragged the black suited body outside the night before. But then thinking, hadn't I washed since? And mud! Everything was covered in snow, so why the mud?

She lit yet another cancer stick, sucking on it deeply as if it was one of her paying customers. There was a thick pall of pervasive smoke hanging around her.

"We saw a whole new universe open up before us then," she stated. This brought me back to what she was saying.

"Women had been created. That would ultimately lead many of us to our downfall." She was looking directly at me once again. Her cheeks drawn right back in her grimace of a predatory smile. I knew all too well what a woman could do, having been married three times, each one taking more money with her than the last. But at the time I supposed it was love. Infatuation. Who knows? But like all things they didn't last. Love is a bright candle and it soon burns out. Love replaced with spiteful words, vindictiveness and eventually the inevitable hatred.

She coughed, as if reading my mind and was trying to get me back to the moment at hand.

"As I was saying, women came along. Their bodies so different from man's. So supple, so needy." As she said this her hands squeezed her large saggy b.r.e.a.s.t.s together, and then released them. She was completely oblivious to what she was doing. The sight was unsettling. And in the process she had unclipped the b.u.t.tons to her tight fake leather blouse, the black imitation leather pealing back like a decomposing black orange peal, revealing more of her sagging cleavage and more unsightly purple bite marks.

I pulled my eyes away a moment too late; she had seen I was watching her performance. She gave another one of her Ches.h.i.+re cat grins. But this time she ran a blistered blue tongue over her lips, in the process smudging her gaudy bright red lipstick that seemed to have already been smeared over the lower half of her face, as if a strong hand had been held over her mouth, also gripping her nose, suffocating away her last ounce of life, the reason this figure was now sitting before me, his mouth piece.

"Eve she was called," she said, after she seemed to regain her composure.

"Together they grunted and heaved in the bushes or simply out in the open for all to see. Studying each other's bodies. Testing, trying, and fulfilling." She gave a grunting noise, gross and animalistic. She then seemed to regain her composure once again to carry on with her story.

"Of course, there was only the missionary position to start with, but they soon got the hang of it, creating new ways, twisting and turn in each others grip. They were like h.o.r.n.y teenagers on sildenafil and bremelanotide." She licked her flaking lips.

"I used the mouth of a serpent, a ground crawling reptile. Obviously the woman knew animals couldn't talk, couldn't utter coherent words. But nonetheless she listened. Lapping up the words I gave her. Relis.h.i.+ng them, tasting them in her sublime mouth that she had used on him. Oh, she was a swallower by the way." She winked.

"In the middle of Eden sat the Tree The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. What was its purpose? Who knows? He obviously did. Why put such a powerful object in mere man's grasp if it didn't have a reason, a mighty purpose?" She lit yet another cigarette, blowing the smoke towards my front room's high ceiling's rafters.

"It is said that G.o.d knows all. The future, everything. If that is the case then He knew I would turn aside, follow another path. He knew the Tree would tempt the pair and they would eat from it, and get punished. So you could say it's all His fault, in a sense." She seemed to shake herself down and return to the story.

"I remember the words as if it were only yesterday: 'Is it so that G.o.d has said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?' I said to her. She in her stupidity replied: 'You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that you do not die.' I spoke quickly as to confuse the wretchedly slow woman. 'You positively will not die. For G.o.d knows that in the very day of you eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like G.o.d, knowing good and bad.'" It was only when she had finished the sentence that I realized she had, for the first time, mentioned the word G.o.d. So she was capable of uttering that word, just deciding not to when referring to Him.

"See they were walking around naked, their bodies glistening in each other's arms. Tempting. Teasing. It would only take so much time before someone clicked. And I did." She tapped the cigarette on her palm that she was now using as an ashtray, rather than stretch out and flick in into the fire. The burning flesh was irritating my nose. What no purse she could have used to dump her ashes? I thought to myself. Or like her kind she just pushes the cash down her top, snuggling it up against her wears. Pushed up against her reddened skin and bite marks, reminding her why she did what she had to.

"They were like robots," she continued. "Mindless. Happy? Who knows? But you could say I freed them. Straight away you could notice the difference. They realized they were naked. They hid behind the bushes, now knowing what they were and what it all meant." She suddenly looked up from her story. Her eyes darting around the room. She stood in one liquid movement that tipped her collected ash onto my old worn Turkish rug.

"Time to go," she announced while brus.h.i.+ng down her tight dress and skimpy top.

"Time to go?" I simply parroted. But when I looked at the walnut Vienna wall clock that hung above my wide mantelpiece I noticed she had been here for four hours. Surely not that long. The tape in the minicorder was only forty-five minutes each side and the same side was still running.

"I will return tomorrow as I did tonight." She said no more. But she looked around one more time as if being able to see something I couldn't. Then she fell back into the chair lifeless. Her body slumped against the high back leather seat. One foot was twisted around one of the chair legs, the other straight out, with the other red shoe having fallen off. Her flabby arms hanging down either side, hanging just above the floor. Her head was hanging forward; her matted peroxide blonde hair cascading down over her saggy features. Cigarette like last night still smouldering upon my carpet. But tonight it had her fire engine red lipstick around its b.u.t.t.

I stared for a few moments collecting my thoughts. I stopped the Sony recorder and placed it back on my cellarette. I took a long swig from the thick gla.s.s tumbler, which until now sat untouched next to my notepad. The strong whisky ran down my throat. I enjoyed the burning sensation, the fumes rising out my nostrils making my eyes water. I didn't even remembering getting up to pour it.

I couldn't put it off any longer. I had to manhandle the hooker's body outside. I stood over the slumped corpse, repulsion rising in me. Her flabby greyish skin showing in far too many places. Red swollen welts circled her neck. I was deciding on what part to grab. As I suspected, when I gripped under her hairy armpits they were stone cold and rigid. With a lot of effort I managed to get my hands under her arms and pull her along. Her feet sc.r.a.ping along the wooden floor. The two red shoes lay next to each other. I will sort them out in a minute I decided.

When I got to the front door I dropped her as I was fumbling with the handle. She went down with a thud. Her head made a sickening noise as it came in contact with my concrete doorstep it sounded like someone dropping an overripe melon.

It wasn't long before I was back beside the roaring fire, trying to put some heat back into my frozen hands. In one swig I drained the remainder of my drink. I sat motionless deciding whether I should have another. But walking over to the drinks cabinet seemed like too much effort. Then as I went to stand I noticed my hands, they were covered in blood!

I stood perplexed, wondering where it could have come from. Yes she had hit her head, but I didn't remember there being any blood, that had congealed hours ago. I was suddenly washed over with tiredness. I decided against going through the minicorder, deciding to start first thing in the morning when I was refreshed.

I ran a hot steaming bath. Unusual for me, normally I preferred a quick hot shower; I'm not one who likes wallowing in my own dirt. But tonight was different. I felt like I needed one. Didn't prost.i.tutes bathe after to wash the night's work from their skin? Was I doing the same?

That's when I got my second shock. My clothes were splattered in blood smothered completely. I now stood naked, the bathroom filling with steam, looking down at my saturated red trousers and jumper. Was it the same jumper from yesterday? I thought I had changed it. I swear I had put on my dark blue one with the triangle pattern across the front. Obviously not. A b.l.o.o.d.y handprint marked a spot on the chest. I must be more tired than I realized. I kicked the clothes into the corner behind the toilet. Out of sight out of mind. Slowly I sunk down into the hot bubbly water that smelt of coconut.

I ran the conversation over in my head. Each time it came out different. I decided tomorrow I would review the tape and make some notes. But for now, I would relax in the hot steaming bath and close my eyes and feel my pores release their acc.u.mulated dirt. The mysteries would come to light in the morning, after a good night sleep.

If only I looked closer at things then, it might have turned out different. I knew of nothing else until the morning, when I awoke, finding myself lying in a bath of freezing red tinted water.

4.

Oh Boy I could hardly move. My joints felt frozen together. I had never fallen asleep in the bath before. But what was most puzzling was the colour of the water, blood red. Confusion was the order of the day. Something I seemed to be getting use too.

All I could remember from the night before was the interview. If it could be called that? As I sat there listening to his words, his story. Or should I say she as he had appeared last night.

I struggled out of the cold red water. Slipping once or twice because my cold hands couldn't gain purchase on the wet surface of the bath sides. No more bubbles this morning, just a cold oily residue on the red tinted waters surface.

I emptied the bath, leaving a red ring around the top. I stepped back in, letting the hot water from the shower slowly bring life back to my cold limbs. I used my feet and cleaned the red ring off. Still confused as to where the blood if it was blood had come from? I searched over my body. No cuts nothing?

I had no idea how long the shower had been running for, but when I reached for my watch from the side of the sink, it was showing almost five o'clock in the afternoon.

I must have needed the sleep. It had been a stressful few days. What I could remember other than the interview. This seemed to dominate my every thought, churning over and over through my mind, like a confusing mantra.

I looked around the bathroom floor. No clothes. I'm sure I had kicked them behind the toilet. But no, nothing. And the bathroom door was ajar?

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.