Fanatics: Zero Tolerance (19 page)

Mark nodded towards the torches. “Do we really need them? Why can’t we just move into rooms with power for now, and repair the generator tomorrow?”

“The press has stopped working,” said Richie, “and we have an order for another four boxes that has to be ready first thing tomorrow morning. Besides,” he added, “I’m determined not to let that brute of a machine beat me. I’ll force it to do its job if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I’ll get my coat,” said Mark.

“I’ll go too,” said Ellen. “I don’t know that I’ll be much help to you, but I couldn’t be bothered hanging around here waiting for the lights to come back on.”

“Fine,” said Richie. “I’ll just tell the others we’re on the ball.”

“Um - I wouldn’t disturb Michael and Joanne. They seem to be in the middle of… you know, in the middle of something.”

“Right. Well, I think the lights in that room are ok anyway.”

A minute later found them trudging up the short slope behind Jericho towards the fenced-off area where the generator was. They spoke little; the business of walking became hypnotic, obliged as they were to concentrate on the shifting patch of torchlight at their feet. The overcast sky let neither moonlight nor starlight through, so that it appeared almost solidly black, and the feeble glow of the few lights still on at the rear of Jericho crept only a metre or two up the hillside; so they found that when they looked up, their torchbeams seemed to peter out impotently into a particularly dark blob in the centre of their vision, illuminating nothing. Straining their eyes into the darkness felt like throwing a stone into a bottomless well: you keep expecting to hear the splash, but it never comes. When they reached the fence, it seemed almost to spring up in front of them.

Ellen followed the two men around to the gate at the side of the enclosure. There was a pause as Richie fumbled in his pockets for the key, and Ellen, directing her
torchbeam at the padlock, saw what he missed: “You won’t need a key. It’s been forced.”

Surprised, Richie reached out and touched the gate lightly with his fingertips; it swung open with a creak. They leant forward slowly to look down the steps.

Ellen turned around sharply as she heard the sound of grass rustling nearby; a dark figure loomed up in front of her, and she stepped back against the fence with a cry, dropping her torch. There was a flash, and the flat, deafening crack of a pistol shot; behind her, the gate crashed to and fro as if someone had fallen violently against it, and she heard a flurry of muffled thumps and scuffling sounds as whoever it was tumbled down the steps towards the generator.

Further off, someone began swearing in a parade-ground voice, and at that moment she realised with astonishment that she was still alive. Then she thought:
Mark!

Before she could call his name, he was calling hers; and she ran to him through the darkness. He pulled her away from the enclosure, and they dived into the long grass nearby and lay still. Ellen had a fleeting moment of deep panic when she felt what she supposed to be the wetness of blood on his jacket; then reason took over, and she realised it was dew. “What about Richie?” she
said in a low voice.

But he hesitated before answering, and when he did, his lie was not a very good one. “He’s alright. Just keep down.”

Meanwhile, the gunman’s excuses for being prematurely trigger-happy were cut off in mid-flow as the owner of the soldier-type voice told him: “Shut up and start looking for the other two! Everybody! Don’t let them get away! Damnfool idea,” he growled to himself, “I knew I should have trusted my own judgment!”

Ellen and Mark watched the flicker of torches scanning the area around them, and willed themselves to sink into the earth. “There must be ten or twelve of them,”
whispered Ellen. “We’re dead, Mark!”

At that moment, she was surprised by something very pleasant. She couldn’t have said exactly what it was; not because it was vague, but because it brought such an enormous surfeit of associations that no one of them could adequately conjure up the fullness of it. It was like dawn breaking an hour before you expected it. It was like finally being able to say a word that’s been on the tip of your tongue for ten minutes. It was like the memory of the hugs your favourite aunt gave you as a
child, so warm and affectionate you thought you would almost suffocate. It was like the smell of bread as it comes fresh from the oven. It was like discovering a tenner you’d forgotten you had. It was like lying back in the sunshine with your eyes closed, feeling the warmth. It was like being told “Well done!” by the person you wanted to please more than anyone else. It was like a mother’s reassurance: “I’ll always be there for you!” It was like tasting chocolate for the first time. It was like being given some amazingly generous gift. It was like realising the alarm clock bleeping beside you doesn’t have to be heeded; you can roll over and go back to sleep, because today is Saturday. It was like meeting a well-loved friend you haven’t seen for ages. It was like being gripped by an innocent lust, such as you might feel for your beloved on your honeymoon; not spoiled by any associations of guilt. It was like finally solving the last, most difficult clue in a crossword puzzle. It was like hearing “I love you!” when you expected to hear “That’s it. It’s over.” It was like winning a very big prize. It was like the warm feeling you get when you realise that Christmas is closer than you had thought. It was like discovering that The Good Old Days haven’t gone forever, after all. It was like walking down the street with your small hand in your father’s giant one. It was like passing some momentous exam. It was like being immensely proud of a beloved brother who has gone out into the big bad world and conquered it; and now he is coming back to be with you again. It was like the arrival of something you’ve been looking forward to for so long that you thought it would never come.

Richie stood over Ellen and Mark and helped them to their feet. He grinned at them, carrying calm with him like a kind of glow, no longer caring a fig for the men with guns; and his two friends found they were not afraid to stand either. The panic and violence of a moment before seemed unspeakably remote. Richie said: “Someone’s here to see you both.”

The man with the loud voice, exasperated and disappointed at how easily and inexplicably his quarry had given him the slip, bellowed an oath. “Never mind them now!” he shouted. “We’ve lost the element of surprise. “We’ll have to rush the place before they all get away!”

They were too late, of course; everyone got away. The only person they found was a bewildered Joanne Grey, who was no help to them at all. There was nothing for it but to burn the place down and hope
no-one from the Forensic Department would be sent out to inspect the ashes and possibly notice the troublesome fact that there were no dead bodies.

“Hold on,” said the trigger-happy gunman. “I have a better idea. Would one body be enough to discourage them from poking about in the ashes too much?”

“Perhaps,” said Loudmouth. “Go ahead.”

They shot Joanne. You may be shocked at the callousness of that; but I believe I’ve already mentioned to you that these were violent times.

*****

“...
the Government wishes to reassure everyone that they will be fully informed as soon as we have all the facts. So please stay at home, stay tuned for further bulletins, and once again,
do not panic
. Thank you.”

*****

“I told you it was scaremongering nonsense,” repeated the Churchman. “It’s most irresponsible of you to keep alarming people by harping on about this.”

“I’m not scaring people,” said the
Ufologist. “I’m offering a message of reassurance. UFOs took them.”

“Rubbish!” shouted the Churchman. “No-one is missing -”

“But we have eyewitnesses!” said the Ufologist, just as loudly.

“-
and anyway, what’s so reassuring about that? If anyone was going to be taken by UFOs, it ought to have been you!”

“If anyone was going to be taken by God,” countered the
Ufologist quickly, “it ought to have been you.”

That stopped the Churchman in his tracks. He had to struggle to find his next words. “Exactly,” he said. “Which simply proves that both theories are wrong.” He sat back in his chair and tried to relax, but found he couldn’t; his companion’s words kept returning to him like an echo that refused to die away.

It ought to have been you.

PART 6: Hereafter

www.belfastmirror.org

Sorry, the specified address could not be found.

www.newnorthernmirror.org/editorial

It’s been over three years now since the war, which is plenty of time to reflect; and every thoughtful person must surely have come to the conclusion by now that the war was a watershed in history - not simply because it involved the widespread use of nuclear weapons, though that was momentous enough - but because it marked a unique departure from the past.
The mind-numbing repetition of the same historical mistake has been brought to an end by Lewis McDonald. There will never be another religious war. The new era of rationality which the Victorians erroneously thought they were ushering in has finally arrived.

This is so significant that many people believe a new system of dating is now justified, and we at the Mirror would like to add our voice to this call. Among the most useful suggestions we have found which might replace AD are: PN, for post-nuclear age; SA, for space age, which might consider the year we first walked on the Moon - 1969 - as the year “dot”; or the most likely (and convenient), CE, which keeps the current year number but
relabels the age “common era”...

www.christiandemocrats.org

Sorry, the specified address could not be found.

*****

“TOLERANCE - we are a cosmopolitan society, of course, but not in a sense that previous generations would have been content with. We are a step beyond that kind of cosmopolitanism. We understand more; we have McDonald’s Proof, and we’ve lived through a war caused by
fanatics which almost wiped us out. We know that a society which is tolerant of everything cannot survive.”

-
from “Instant Wisdom” by G.C. Campbell (revised edition).

*****

“You have now reached the stage where obituaries are pointless.

“Beyond here, those who die are never heard from again, and those who survive will never die again. The lesson of death is so
well-learned, or so completely ignored, that no further reminder has any purpose.

“The wheat and the chaff are separate, just as (in their deepest hearts) they have always longed to be; but the wheat prospers, multiplying thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold, whereas the chaff finds that loneliness and self-destruction are the natural result of putting self first.

“Most of us did not understand that the next step in the evolutionary process was the development of a creature which could resist the evolutionary imperative to survive, to put self first. We were no longer mere animals; we were capable of seeing that there are higher goals than survival, and that, oddly enough, they are the only things which could ensure our survival in any meaningful sense. Chasing our hearts’ desires - putting our own interests above all else - was a step backwards. Putting Someone Else at the centre was the only solution to our problems, the only way of attaining our hearts’ desires.

“There was, however, a sense in which everyone else got their hearts’ desire at the end. The dead had many wishes, but neither a genie in a bottle nor an omnipotent God could have granted them all, for the granting of one was often the thwarting of another. The very fact of selfishness rendered impossible the existence of a universe in which everyone’s wishes were gratified all the time. But what they willed most deeply was given to them in the final moments: simply to go on being what they are, and to be left alone by God. Thus, the darkness, loneliness, thirst, heat, and suffocating, claustrophobic smallness of Hell:
‘Go away,’ they told Him. But if He is absent, how can there be anything good left behind?”

-
from “Raptures” by John Andrews.

Afterword

This is a novel, not a theology textbook. However, I hope you’ll grant me that it does at least convey a
flavour of the dark days ahead, showing how our world might easily blunder its way into becoming the one pictured in scripture; and that no matter how dark things get and how impossible the prospect of deliverance may seem, deliverance will most certainly come.

If the tapestry I have woven here does not happen to match your interpr
etation of scripture, it’s entirely possible the reason might be that I’m not as wise or spirit-filled as you. Sorry. I hope no harm has been done, nor offence caused, nor anyone led astray. In the meantime, if you think people shouldn’t be reading this book, why don’t you recommend to them the one they should be reading? (Big clue: it starts with a B.)