Afterworlds: The 13th Horseman

The cat didn’t move.

“Out!” Drake barked, striding along the path and throwing the gate wide open. “Go chase a mouse or something!” He looked down at the cat’s stubby legs and fragile body. “Or an ant, or whatever it is you little guys chase.”

Toxie sniffed, crossed his front paws on the ground, and rested his head on them. His eyes peered up through a matted fringe of browny-black hair. Every line of his body suggested he had no intention of going anywhere.

“Right, then,” Drake sighed. He took two large paces forward, then bent down and scooped the cat up. He held it at arm’s length, his face turned away. The stench was almost unbearable. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve forced my— Hey!”

With a sudden jerk of its head, the cat’s rotten teeth clamped round the ten-pound note in Drake’s hand. The animal’s frail body twisted in Drake’s grip, and then it was on the ground, the money still held in its mouth.

“Give that back!” Drake cried, as the cat scampered off round the side of the house. Drake gave chase, squeezing past the bins and the cardboard boxes that filled the little alley leading from the front garden to the back.

With a rustle, the cat vanished into the long grass at the rear of the house. Drake plunged in after it. There was no way he was letting that cat run away with his pizza money.

He pushed through the tangle of weeds and bracken, calling out as he ran. “Get back here. Get back here now!”

Drake was halfway along the garden when the instinct to give chase abruptly faded. He swished to a stop in a particularly dense patch of jungle.

What was he doing? He’d come running into the garden alone. Running into the area where he’d seen the shed and the three strange men in it. He’d been so focused on catching the cat and getting his money back that he’d forgotten all about it.

He listened for the cat, but heard nothing. It had probably already left the garden. His money would be long gone.

Slowly, so as not to draw any more attention to himself, Drake turned round and made a move back towards his house. The weeds opened like a theatre curtain as he shoved his way through.

A chill breeze danced across his skin as he stepped into a neatly kept clearing. Toxie sat on the closely cropped lawn, his tail thumping happily on the grass, the ten-pound note still held in his mouth.

Behind the cat, the shed creaked ominously in the wind.

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THE TALL GRASS and weeds whipped at Drake as he high-tailed it away from the clearing. His heart thudded in his chest like a bongo drum made of terror as he frantically tried to put as much distance between himself and the shed as he possibly could. Were the men still inside? More importantly, had they heard him? One thing was for certain: he wasn’t sticking around to find out.

With a gasp he leaped from the grass, expecting to land on the uneven concrete of the back step. Instead his feet found themselves touching down once more on neatly cropped lawn. The shed stood before him, exactly as it had done a few moments ago. He’d gone round in a circle.

He turned and surged back into the jungle of weeds. How could he have been so stupid? He wouldn’t let it happen again. Fixing his eyes on the house, Drake made a beeline straight for it.

A few moments later he spilled out into the clearing. Toxie gave a happy yelp as Drake skidded to a halt on the grass. This was wrong. This was all wrong! Trembling with panic, Drake spun on his heels and darted back towards the high weeds. The men in the shed could be wanted criminals for all he knew. Murderers. Possibly even cannibals, judging by the size of the fat one. He had to get away.

“Haw, pal, you’re wasting your time,” boomed a voice from behind him. Drake’s stomach bunched into a tight knot of fear and he propelled himself into the head-high undergrowth, not daring to look back. The weeds seemed to work against him, tangling and grabbing at him as he ran.

When he emerged into the clearing for the fourth time it didn’t come as any great surprise. His legs and arms ached, his hands and face were covered in insect bites – even breathing was proving painful. The way he felt right now, death would almost come as a relief.

“Told you,” said the bearded giant who stood in the clearing. He was casually running a large brick along the length of an enormous sword, spraying the grass with little orange sparks. “Now, you can try running again, but you’ll only end up back here, and I’m getting fed up of hanging around waiting for you to get that through your heid.”

The man had looked big when he was sitting down in the shed, but out here he managed to make the rest of the world look small. Arms as thick as tree trunks bulged from his torso, which spread out like a brick wall on either side of the long, flowing beard. Rusted chain mail covered two telegraph pole legs. Boots that may have once been wild animals of some kind were pulled tight over feet large enough to make the very planet itself shake. He looked dangerous. And he was staring directly at Drake.

“Wh-who are you?” Drake stammered.

“To some I’m the living embodiment of cruelty and suffering, who will rain fire and fury down upon them come the Day of Judgement,” the man said gruffly. “To others I’m a big bugger with a red horse. Just depends who you ask, really.” With a flourish he flicked the sword around and slid it into a sheath slung across his back. He wiped his hands on his leather tunic, then extended one for Drake to shake. “But you can call me War.”

Hesitantly, Drake reached out and shook War’s hand. His own fingers felt all too fragile in the giant’s grasp.

“Drake,” he said. “Drake Finn.”

“Aye. I know.”

The shed door flew open and the skinny man Drake had seen earlier stomped out. He shielded his dark, sunken eyes from the sun as he marched angrily across the lawn.

“He’s done it again!” the man shrilled. “He’s eaten my antiseptic cream! That’s the fourth one this week. I’ll never get this rash cleared up at this rate!”

“I was hungry,” called a voice from inside the shed. The wooden doorframe groaned in protest as the fat man appeared and squeezed himself through. He inched slowly forward, supporting himself with two walking sticks.

“You’re always hungry!” snapped the scrawnier figure. He folded his frail arms across his pigeon chest in the universal language of sulk.

“Yeah,” the fat man mumbled, licking dollops of thick white cream from round his mouth, “and you’ve always got a rash.”

“This is Pestilence,” War explained, stabbing a thumb in the skinny man’s direction. “The walking dustbin over there’s Famine.”

“Nice to see you again,” gushed Pestilence.

“All right?” nodded Famine. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any crisps on you?”

“I’d shake your hand, but you’d only catch something,” Pestilence continued, laughing nervously. “Still, I don’t suppose it matters really, what with you being—” War glowered at him, cutting him short.

“With me being what?” asked Drake.

“With you being... so handsome!” Pestilence gushed.

“Or some cakes?” asked Famine hopefully. “I could really go a Swiss Roll.”

“To understand who you are, you need to know who we are,” War explained. He bent forward slightly and glared down at Drake. “Do you know who we are?”

Drake’s gaze swept across the expectant faces of all three men. None of them had made any move to kill him, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t coming. It’d probably be safer to play along with their game, then make a run for it the first chance he got.

“War, Pestilence and Famine,” he mused. “Those are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, aren’t they?”

“You’ve studied your religious texts,” said War approvingly.

“Actually, I saw it in a cartoon,” Drake confessed.

“Oh.”

“Even some mints would do! I’m not fussy.”

“Sorry, I don’t have any food,” apologised Drake. Famine sighed and rubbed his swollen stomach sadly. “Hang on though, aren’t there supposed to be four of you?” Drake asked.

“Aye, well... There are four of us,” said War. There was a note of caution in his voice that couldn’t be missed. “We’re all here.”

Drake frowned. Not only did these lunatics think they were mythological characters, they also couldn’t count.