Bells
War. War never changes.
Especially holy war.
In the year 2077, after untold years of sin and infighting, mankind finally attempted to destroy itself. Atomic warheads battered the surface of the Earth, sending human civilization into deep hibernation. Pockets of society survived, struggling to live on the scraps of the old world.
Before the Great War, the overpopulated and bloated city of New York was the embodiment of the American Dream. Enormous buildings invaded the sky, containing within bright young men and women who all strove against one another to be more and more successful, even as rampant inflation rendered their wages entirely useless. 'Greed is good' became the city's motto. Religion grew to be a subject that was scoffed at. Those with true faith were rare, viewed by the majority as oddities. The President himself denounced that which he had once sworn to. "God is a lie," he roared, pounding the podium in front of him and sending the audience into raptures. "Your country is your religion. The Eagle is your Lord."
On the day on the bombs fell, many of the people had no refuge. The underground Vaults, rendered useless by the 'Cry Wolf' effect, closed their great doors leaving countless unfortunates trapped outside. The ghoulification process, common in years to come, was uncommonly prevalent and fast-spreading. The skyscrapers were converted in an instant into flaming tombs. Both those with faith and without called it the Apocalypse. The Red Communists were forgotten, as rumor spread in the dying city that demons walked among the destruction. New York was enveloped in a deep and never-ending darkness, unnatural even for the period after a nuclear holocaust.
Fire leaped without a spark. The unlucky survivors were haunted by strange spectres, whose appearance none could explain but who all feared. And all through the city, ominous bells rang, signalling that the ghosts had taken another for their own.
In short, New York became Hell on Earth.
While the rest of America, and the world, started to rebuild, New York evolved into a name to be feared. Travellers spoke of the luminescent city of the dead in hushed tones, fearful that the nameless ones would come for them. Now and again, a brave caravan, a foolhardy band of mercenaries or a hungry group of slavers made the trek from one of the renewing areas that began to grow around the remnants of the U.S.A.
None returned.
It is the year 2277. It is a day of death and horror like any other. New York's population has been decimated, and only isolated and heavily fortified enclaves of humans and ghouls remain. One of these ghouls is on a dangerous errand, returning from the shell of hospital on Madison Avenue, carrying with him vital equipment for a delicate situation.
He ran. He ran harder and faster than he had ever moved in his long, largely miserable life. Pain shot through him, assassinating his muscles, roaring at his brain to give the order to cease; to desist. He ignored it, tightening his decaying hand around the handle of the brown bag in which his precious cargo was contained.
The streets were black. The moon was veiled, and no silver light illuminated his path, but he needed it not. He knew where he was going, he had tread this path many times before. His legs pumped up and down, heedless of his screaming nerves. Several times he tripped, or stumbled, his old eyes unable to pierce the threatening gloom. He carried on, forcing his ageing body to move as fast as it could endure.
The night was silent, save for the never-ending tattoo of his feet on the cold pavement. The noiseless air was unnerving, and he quickened his pace. Quiet was bad. But a sudden, dull crash was infinitely worse. His ears strained to catch any sound that did not match his own hurried footfall.
He tore around a corner. The city was different, now. Ruined buildings loomed overhead, their dizzying heights unable to bewilder him as they normally did in his normal, mundane existence. Friendly faces were replaced by leering shadows, reaching out to snatch him as he outpaced the enveloping darkness. Groping fingers of shade tickled the back of his neck, causing his minuscule hairs to stand erect. Freezing sweat drenched him, stinging his eyes, drying his mouth. His forced his head down, and stormed on. Not far to go, now.
Lights. Little dots, flickering in the distance, in a place that he knew to be a small, dilapidated diner. He had frequented the place regularly, scavenging scraps of food and drops of water from the owner. Until they came.
The lights necessitated a halt. His lungs groaned in relief. Bent double, he assessed his options. To approach the glowing diner was tantamount to suicide. He had to find another way around, but he had no time. Every second was precious. They were waiting. They needed him. They would not survive without him. He would not let fear deny the miracle taking place a few blocks from where he was hunched over.
He knew, in his wildly thumping heart, that there was only one option. His resolve tightened. As if to pay tribute to his heroic strength of will, his limbs hardened. He was a creature of steel, and only death would break him.
Gathering his courage, and taking a moment to kiss the ancient crucifix around his neck, he blessed himself and muttered a silent prayer. He surged forward. He flew past the barrels of flame like a gale, glancing inside the shell of the eatery as he did so. White, faceless figures stared blankly out at him, blind from atomic fire. One of them raised a hand, it's ragged finger pointing at him as he moved beyond the pool of wavering light at great speed.
His heart skipped a beat.
He winced, awaiting the inevitable, and prayed that somehow he would be the exception.
Even as he did so, clutching to his childish hope, he heard them. The sound he had hoped that he would never hear again as long as he lived. Throughout the broken city, they clashed, assaulting the ears of all who cowered in the midst of the horrible clamour.
Bells. They were a death-knell, resounding through his head.
But still he tore on, his limbs refreshed by clawing terror, knowing that his time was almost up, that his task was near to it's end. Behind him, in the deep curtain of shadow, glimmering eerily, they began to follow.
Tears pooled in the corner of his eyes, but they dissolved in the wind.
He slipped through alleyways. The skeleton city shook with reverberating explosions of noise. The bells would not be denied.
And there it was. Even in the nightmare dusk, he knew it. His, and so many others sanctuary in this sinkhole. Somehow, after everything that had happened, it was still standing. It was still intact. God's will, some said. St Patrick's Cathedral shone beautifully, it's pale light unable to be obscured by the never-ending eventide. He slipped inside the great doors, now reinforced to protect the inhabitants. Closing it behind him, he slid the huge bolt across the door. An exercise in futility, which he knew too well. Outside, the phantoms gathered.
The cavernous hall sucked the echo of his trudging feet into the rafters. Men, women and children huddled together in the pews, fear etched on their faces. They turned to watch as he hurried past them, eyes beseeching him for some type of news. The only words he could give them would make the situation worse. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
He gained the famous altar, drenched in perspiration. The priest awaited him, his expression wrung with anxiety, holding the small hatch open for him to enter. In his other hand, a candle's illumination guttered. Outside, the bells continued their cacophony, but insulated by the great church he could hear soft groans. The priest, old before his time, wiped his brow with his cassock as he crouched down near his charge. With a worried sigh, he turned his weary visage towards him. In his Northern Irish brogue, he asked him the question.
"D'ya have it, son?"
He nodded, handing the medical equipment he had carried so far to the man who he now entrusted with every last piece of hope he held on to. The priest took the small brown bag with obvious relief.
The priest's brown hair was shot through with grey, a mark of the time he was living in. The small flame highlighted the deep lines that bored through the holy man's skin, each one a canyon of unseasonal age. His sympathetic eyes regarded the moaning ghoul on the floor, her back pressed against a carven image of The Madonna. Her grotesquely swollen womb was heaving, and the signs of imminent birth pooled around her on the floor. He watched his wife attempt to keep her breathing even and felt, rising in him, an overwhelming longing to remain by her side, to do his duty as a husband. But he could not. And as she opened her eyes to look at him, he saw on her face the dawning realisation that the bells had not ceased. He saw her face fall, as the knowledge of what he had to do sunk in.
"No... Don't go..."
The look on her face almost broke him, and the obvious distress in her jagged voice nearly changed his mind. The pain of another contraction split her beautiful (to him) features, however, and he seized his chance. He slipped away without a word, fighting with despair as he did so. The priest, intent upon his work, did not notice. The necessity of the ghoul's actions was unquestionable.
But that didn't stop it being the hardest thing he ever had to do.
Those taking refuge amongst the harsh and uncomfortable wooden benches seemed to recognise the significance of his slow stride down the aisle. They cringed away from him, as though he were cursed. He lifted the bolt from the door, and with a final deep breath, stepped outside. He shut it behind him, and he could hear the scrabbling of those inside as they hastened to secure their position once again.
The bells seemed to have grown in violence. Demonic they seemed to him as he faced the darkness head on, unbowed yet terrified. Directly in front of him, amidst the twisted metal and fire that was all that remained of Rockefeller Centre, white shadows slipped in and out of his vision. He could perceive their expressionless faces. He could not say how many of them there were, but even one was too many. Fumbling, he drew his only defence against the colourless tide that would engulf him all too soon. The sight of his father's revolver in his shaking hand was strangely reassuring. He started down the steps, drawing the ghastly legion away from the St. Patrick's survivors. He advanced up Fifth Avenue, his now steady hand wielding the gun skillfully. From side-streets and dead buildings they crept, harbingers of his doom. Shot after shot erupted from his right hand, and they fell. Whether they were dead before or after the wound, he did not know.
He did not get far before he reached the unavoidable impasse. His ammunition failed, and for his last stand he stood upon a yellow taxi-cab, determined to fall fighting. They circled around him, identical in their evil intention. The ghoulish light that emanated from them hid their true appearance, casting them all as blank canvases of dread. Surrounded on all sides, he prayed to his God once more.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespassed against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."
The infernal bells droned on, eager for his death.
Over the terrible riot, however, he heard a noise which pierced his heart and sent cold shivers shooting up his spine. He heard an impossible sound, an unexplainable phenomenon, weaving it's way up Fifth Avenue.
He heard the newborn child cry.
The child which he had not fathered, the child that no-one could have fathered. The miracle child took it's first breath, deep in the bowels of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the advancing horde, merely feet from him, faltered. And now their awful pallor failed, and their decaying guises had an expression- fear.
The opaque clouds broke above his head. A shaft of white light sundered the nebulous air.
The waxen army floundered, suddenly defeated. He watched as they dissolved into ash, their soundless agony lifting him into elation. His astounded eyes burned in the sudden blaze. The bells did not fade, but the noise had changed. With every clang, joy filled him.
They were not forsaken. Night was over. Morning had come. He dropped to his knees, and looked up to the heavens, to Heaven, and began to cry. In his own, private paradise, he choked out one word.
"Alleluia."
*Thank you for reading.
KOTP