The 13th Horseman (10 page)

A
FEW HOURS
later, Drake waited by the gates, watching the rest of the school file past him. No one paid him any attention, not even Bingo, Dim and Spud, the three no-longer-missing bullies. He’d felt a stirring of panic when he’d spotted them approaching, but they’d marched past in single file, none of them so much as shooting a spotty-faced sneer in his direction.

It was ten minutes since the bell had rung. Most of the other kids had left, and now only a few stragglers passed him on the way out of the gates. Drake looked up at the closest bit of the school building. The school was made up of two distinct parts. The bit at the back was a box-like construction of dull grey concrete, with evenly spaced windows that looked in danger of falling out of their frames at any moment.

In front of that was a smaller, more modern-looking extension. The outside of it was clad in weather-beaten aluminium panels, and the windows had been arranged so that, if you squinted just the right way, they almost looked like a face: three storeys of glass along the bottom, and two much larger windows like eyes up above.

Drake watched the main doors. There was a sinking feeling in his chest. Maybe Mel had already left?

He was about to start walking, when she came striding out. She half walked, half skipped over to meet him.

“Hey,” he said, as she fell into step beside him.

“Hey, Chief,” she smiled. “You waited for me?”

“What? Oh, no, I was just...” He shrugged. There was no point trying to hide it. “Well, yeah. Kind of. I didn’t see you at lunchtime. Just wanted to make sure you were OK.”

“Yeah, I was looking for you too. Did Mr Franks bail you out?”

“He did. Thanks.”

“Ah, I love new teachers. So eager to be liked,” she said. “What did old Blackie want?”

“He just wanted to know why I didn’t go and see him yesterday, like he’d asked.”

“And what did you say?”

She turned to look at him, but found the space beside her empty. Drake was standing in the middle of the pavement, several paces back. He was looking past her at the road ahead.

“You OK?”

Mel turned and followed his gaze. Further along the street, she saw a shed made of dark wood, with a jolly red roof.

“What’s up?” Mel asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Can we not go this way?” Drake asked. “Is there another way to your house?”

“Lots of ways to my house,” Mel said. “What’s the matter, though? Is it that shed? Are you shed-o-phobic?”

“What? No.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Shed-o-phobia’s really common. Probably.”

“I’m not scared of the shed, I’d just rather—”

“Hey, look, there’s someone inside,” Mel said. She pointed to the door of the shed, which was now opening. A pale-faced man in a neat white suit stepped out and waved a rubber-gloved hand.

“Coo-ee! Drake!”

“Do you know that guy?” Mel asked.

Drake shook his head. “No.”

“It’s just that he’s sort of shouting your name,” Mel said. “And beckoning you over.”

“He must have me mixed up with someone else,” Drake said.

“Let’s go and ask him,” said Mel. She hooked her thumbs through the straps of her schoolbag and made her way towards the shed.

“No, wait, come back,” Drake said weakly, but he knew he was wasting his breath. He had no choice but to go after her.

Pestilence was grinning from ear to ear by the time they reached the shed. “Hello, Drake,” he said. He turned to Mel. “And who do we have here?”

“Mel Monday,” Mel said. She held out her hand. Pestilence looked at it nervously, as if it might explode at any moment.

“He doesn’t really do the handshaking thing,” Drake said. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Very wise,” Mel said. “You don’t know where I might have been.”

Pestilence’s eyes opened a little wider. “Exactly! Ooh, I like you,” he said. “What did you say your name was?”

“Mel Monday.”

Pest smiled warmly. “Monday’s child is fair of face,” he said. “Lovely to meet you, my name’s—”

“Bob,” said Drake, more loudly than he had intended. Pest and Mel both turned to look at him. “Uncle Bob. He’s my... He’s my Uncle Bob. Isn’t that right, Uncle Bob?”

“Will you hurry up?” growled a voice from inside the shed. “My back’s about breaking here.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” said Pestilence. He spun a plastic arrow that was attached to a square of card in his other hand. “Left foot green.”

“
Left foot green?
” War cried. “How in the name of God am I supposed to—?”

Drake reached over and pulled the door closed, and the voice became muffled. A moment later, a loud
thud
shook the wooden walls of the shed.

“What do you want, Uncle Bob?” Drake asked.

“We... thought you might like to go horse riding,” Pest said. “We were going to do some practice, remember?”

This time, it was Mel’s eyes that widened. “Horse riding?” she said. “Can I come?”

Pestilence suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Well, I suppose, it’s not... I mean...” He opened the shed door. “One second,” he said, then he stepped inside and closed the door.

Voices muttered beyond the door. A moment later, it was yanked open, revealing a bearded giant standing inside. “You,” he said, stabbing a finger at Drake. “Get in. You,” he said, stabbing the same finger at Mel. “Go home.”

“Maybe you can come another time?” Drake suggested, before War caught him by the arm and dragged him into the shed. “See you tomorrow!” Drake managed to cry, and then the door slammed closed between them.

“Well, she seemed
lovely
,” Pest said. “But
Uncle Bob
? I mean, really? Do I look like a
Bob
? Why not Uncle Jose? Or... or... Uncle Alejandro?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Drake demanded, glaring at War. “You can’t just go dragging me in here any time you feel like it.”

“And you can’t go shirking your duties any time you feel like it. We let you go home last night on the understanding you met us after school. It’s now after school, so we saved you the bother of coming to us.”

Drake crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. For the first time since entering the shed, he spotted Famine. He was lying face down on a
Twister
mat, apparently unconscious.

“Right, fine,” Drake scowled. “Where are we going?”

Pestilence slipped a slim remote control into his breast pocket. “We’re already there,” he said, and he opened the door.

Drake didn’t recognise the field at first. It wasn’t until he spotted the narrow river, and the bridge that the floating sphere had hidden behind, that he knew where he was.

“What are we doing here?” he asked, following War and Pestilence outside. Famine, for the moment, remained unconscious.

“Like I said, horse riding,” Pest told him.

Drake swept his gaze across the field. “Won’t we need horses for that?”

“We most certainly will. That’s the first part of the lesson, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

War stepped between them. He curved his middle finger and thumb into the shape of a letter C and stuck them in his mouth. A shrill whistle almost made Drake’s eardrums burst.

“Bloody Hell,” he cried, clamping his hands over his ears. “Tell me when you’re going to do that, will you?”

Even through his hands, Drake heard the thunderclap. It rolled across the field, bending the grass and swirling the surface of the river. The force of it made Drake take a step backwards. Pestilence, who had clearly been expecting it, took shelter behind War.

“Did you... Did you just whistle for thunder?” Drake asked.

“Only gods can make thunder,” War told him. “I just whistled for
him
.”

“Who?” Drake asked, before a horse leaped from thin air and sailed over his head. He turned and watched it gallop across the field for a few hundred metres, gradually slowing down. Shortly before it slowed to a full stop, it turned and began cantering back towards them. Drake watched its mane dance like fire in the afternoon sun.

“Oh, great,” he muttered, as the red horse
clopped
closer. “You again.”

Another piercing whistle sent him ducking for cover. He looked up to see Pestilence take both pinkie fingers out of his mouth.

“Seriously, will you
please
give me some warning before you do that?” Drake cried, but another boom of thunder drowned him out before the sentence was even half finished.

This time Drake was ready for the wind. He ducked his head and angled his body to avoid being shoved back. When he looked up, the front half of a white horse was slouching towards him. The back half followed a moment later. Drake saw the air round the horse ripple, as if the world itself had parted, just for a moment, to let the animal through.

The horse kept walking until it reached Pestilence. “You can pat him, if you like,” Pest said encouragingly.

Drake looked up at the horse. It was almost as big as War’s. Whereas the red horse looked like it should be put on display by an art gallery, though, this one looked like it should be put down by a vet.

Weeping sores dotted the horse’s flanks, and a dark crimson liquid dripped from within its mouth and round its eyes. Its tail and mane were ragged and filthy. As it walked, Drake could see every one of its ribs beneath its dry, shrivelled skin.

The horse whinnied loudly, but the whinny became a cough and the cough, eventually, became a raspy wheeze. The animal limped over to stand beside War’s horse, which promptly took two paces in the opposite direction.

“Um... is your horse OK?” Drake asked, as diplomatically as he could. “It looks a bit, sort of, under the weather.”

“Don’t let his appearance fool you,” Pestilence said. “He’s fit as a fiddle, that one. Aren’t you, love?”

The horse neighed, retched, then vomited on to the grass. “Fit as a fiddle,” Pestilence repeated, somewhat less confidently.

“Now it’s your turn,” War said.

“My turn for what?”

“Summon your steed. Call forth the pale horse,” War told him.

Drake nodded uncertainly. “How do I do that?”

“You whistle,” snapped War, whose patience was rapidly approaching wafer-thinness. “Like we did.”

“I can’t whistle.”

War stared. A breeze blew. Pest’s horse suffered spectacular diarrhoea.

“
What
did you say?”

“I said I can’t whistle. Is that a problem?”

War’s teeth clamped together until there was barely room for the words to escape. “Yes,” he growled. “That’s a problem. If you can’t whistle, how can you call your horse?”

“I dunno, can’t I just shout or something?”

“And what would you shout, exactly?”

“Sort of, ‘Here, horsey horsey,’ or something,” Drake suggested. “Would that work?”

War shook his head. “No,” he said, in a voice like two bricks rubbing together. “That wouldn’t work.”

“Can you try whistling?” Pestilence asked. “You just sort of stick your fingers in your mouth and blow. It’s not that difficult.”

“I’ve tried before,” Drake said. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and blew, as Pest had suggested. What came out sounded almost exactly like the white horse’s last bowel movement. “See? Can’t do it.”

“No, you can’t, can you?” Pest said glumly.

“I can whistle normally. A bit,” Drake said. He pursed his lips together and made a warbly, high-pitched squeak. “That any use?”

“Oh, aye, that’ll be very handy if we ever need to summon a budgie,” War spat.

“Keep practising and it’ll come,” Pestilence said encouragingly.

“And what do you suggest we do in the meantime?” War asked.

Pestilence looked up and squinted in the glare of the sun. “It’s a lovely day,” he said brightly. “What’s say we go for a ride?”

T
HE GROUND ROLLED
by in a blur beneath the horse’s hooves. Despite appearances, Pestilence’s horse was strong. It galloped across the fields and bounded over fences, matching the pace of War’s mount without any sign of difficulty.

On its back, Pestilence clutched the reins. Drake sat behind him, holding on to a handle at the rear of the saddle, and silently praying that the horse wouldn’t go airborne.

“You OK back there?” Pest asked.

“Well, I haven’t fallen off yet,” Drake replied.

Pestilence smiled. “That’s a good start.” He was holding the reins with one hand. With the other, he was applying a thick white cream to his face. “Got to put this stuff on or I’ll blister something terrible in this sun,” he explained. “I got so burned last time I looked like I’d been bobbing for chips.”

“Shouldn’t you, you know, see a doctor?” Drake asked him.

“For sunburn?”

“For everything. It’s just, you seem to have a few medical... issues.”

The horse leaped over a small stone wall. Pestilence waited for it to touch back down before he replied. “Comes with the job, don’t it? Pestilence means plague and disease and viruses and stuff. That’s me all over, that. And it’s not exactly a barrel of laughs, let me tell you.”

“Is that why you wear the gloves and stuff? So you can try and avoid catching germs?”

“More the other way round,” Pest explained. “I can’t catch anything from humans, but there’s no saying what they might catch from me.”

Drake subtly slid himself further back in the seat. “Relax,” Pest laughed. “You’re not human any more.”

“
What?
Well, what am I, then?”

“You’re a Horseman of the Apocalypse, of course.” Pestilence paused a moment, letting this information sink in. “Well, for the next ninety days, anyway.”

“What happens after ninety days?” Drake asked.

Pestilence smiled, but Drake couldn’t see it. “You’re going to quit, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. So I am,” Drake nodded. “Is Famine going to be OK?”

“Hmm? Oh, he’ll be fine. Just over-exerted himself a bit. Best to let him sleep it off.”

Up ahead, War’s horse cleared a five-metre-wide stream in a single leap. Pest slipped his suncream into his jacket pocket and gave the reins a flick. Drake felt the ground fall away as the horse jumped. It seemed to hang in mid-air for several seconds, before landing on the opposite bank with a jarring jolt.

“What’s my horse like?” Drake asked. He had to admit, he was a little disappointed he hadn’t been able to summon it.

“No idea,” Pestilence replied. “Every Death has had a different horse. Yours doesn’t exist yet. It won’t exist until you summon it.”

“War keeps saying I’m the rider on the pale horse, though.”

“Just a Bible quotation,” Pest shrugged. “I think the first Death’s horse was a sort of sickly green colour, but there’s been all sorts since then. Death Eight’s horse was made of living magma. Used to ruin his trousers whenever he sat on it.” Pest sighed sadly. “No wonder the poor beggar killed himself. The goldfish had a lime-green one, if I remember right.”

“The goldfish had a horse?” Drake gaped. “What, you mean even
it
could whistle?”

“After a fashion,” Pest said. “If you squeezed it hard enough.”

“You didn’t!”

“Of course the goldfish didn’t have a horse,” laughed the horseman. “It borrowed mine. But anyway, the point is your horse might be pale, or it might be bright purple, we’ll just have to wait and see. War just likes his Bible quotes.”

“I don’t think he likes me,” Drake said.

There was a lengthy pause before Pestilence spoke again. “He doesn’t like anyone. Not really. And he’s... not convinced you’re a suitable choice for Death.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think we could’ve done a lot worse.”

“Thanks,” Drake said. “But what if he’s right? What if there’s been a mistake? Maybe I’m not supposed to be Death.”

“The powers that be don’t make mistakes,” Pest assured him.

“What about the goldfish?”

“The powers that be don’t make mistakes
very often
. That was a one-off.”

Drake stayed quiet for a while after that. The horses galloped across the wide fields, racing up the hills and thundering down the dales. Despite the blinding speed and the nagging worry that he could fall off at any moment, Drake actually found himself enjoying the journey.

A suspicion had been nagging at him for the past few hours, though, and Pestilence had been pretty forthcoming with information so far.

“The old Death,” he said. “Death Nine. What did he look like?”

“A sort of big, black wraith figure. Like a living version of the Robe of Sorrows, if you can imagine such a thing.”

“Oh, right,” said Drake, a little disappointed. “Not a skinny old man with a big hooked nose, then?”

“Ah, you mean what did he look like in human form?” Pest asked. “Dark and sinister, probably, but that’s just a guess. We never got to see him. He wasn’t human when he started.”

“What was he?”

“Just an ominous black shape, really. We’ve had a few Deaths like that. God knows where they get them.”

“But he definitely turned human when he left?” Drake asked.

“Oh, yes. That’s in the contract, that. Terminate the agreement in any way and you’ll take human form, regardless of what form you might’ve been to begin with.”

“War said that he could do it. The old Death, I mean. That he could bring on Armageddon.”

Pestilence spoke hesitantly. “He said he
might
be able to do it, but only if he’d planned things well in advance.”

“The robotic demon in the Junk Room, and the sphere things at school,” Drake said quietly. “They must’ve been planned in advance, right?”

“Yes,” Pest admitted. “I’d think they must have.”

“How will we know if he does do it?”

“We’ll get a phone call. And, of course, there’ll be signs.”

“What kind of signs?” asked Drake.

Pest shrugged. “Oh, the usual. Earthquakes. Raining blood. Plagues of locusts. That sort of thing.”

He gave another flick of the reins and the horse bounded over the remains of an old stone cottage.

“They’ve got this book, see? Them upstairs. The Book of Everything. It tells them... well, it tells them
everything
, like you might expect. But most importantly, as far as we’re concerned, it tells them when the end of the world is coming, so they can start rolling out the signs. It’s a pretty foolproof system.”

War’s horse slowed to a stop and the giant leaped down on to the grass. Pest brought his own horse to a halt beside him. The animal broke wind loudly.

“Ooh, better out than in!” laughed Pestilence.

With a hoarse hacking sound, the horse coughed blood on to the grass.

“Probably better in than out, that one,” Pest said weakly. He swung his leg down into an expert dismount. He and War watched as Drake slid awkwardly in the saddle, kicked frantically in mid-air, then landed in a heap on the ground.

“Aw, smoothly done,” War said, clapping his hands together slowly.

Drake stood up and tried to brush the grass stains from his trousers. They smudged a little, but didn’t go away. Mum wasn’t going to be happy about that.

“Yeah, very funny. What did you stop for?” Drake asked.

“Last night you asked about Death’s abilities,” War intoned. “I thought now might be a good time to discuss them.”

Drake looked at the wide-open space around them. Aside from a small tin shack at the foot of one of the hills, there was nothing in any direction but fields and trees and dirt-track roads.

“Out here?”

“Yes, out here, where there’s less chance of you accidentally killing anyone.”

Drake’s stomach went tight. “I’m not killing anyone,” he said quickly. “Is that what I’m supposed to do? I’m not doing that.”

“
Accidentally
killing anyone, I said,” War growled. “No one’s asking you to kill anyone on purpose.”

“But isn’t that what I do, though?” Drake asked. He was suddenly realising exactly what he might have got himself into. “I mean, if I’m Death, that’s what I do, right?” He clamped a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God, I’m evil, aren’t I? Death, War, Famine, Pestilence; we’re all evil!”

“No one has to kill anyone,” Pestilence explained. “All we’re supposed to do is ride the horses across the sky come Judgement Day. We’re like
mascots
, really. Just sort of cutting the ribbon to declare Armageddon open for business.”

“And we’re not evil,” War said. His nostrils were flared in a sneer, as if the very suggestion offended him. “Wars can lead to freedom. A plague or a famine have no will of their own, they’re natural events.”

“But what about me?” Drake asked quietly. “Death’s evil, isn’t it?”

“Murder’s evil,” War said. “But death? No. Death can be the end of suffering. Death can be a welcome visitor. I have seen people begging for death, and weeping with relief when it finally came. Most people fear death, but sometimes, in the end, it’s the only friend they’ve got.”

“And on that cheerful note,” said Pest, doing his best to ease the tension, “let’s get on with the training!”

Drake rapped his knuckles against the side of the tin hut.
Clang, clang, clang.
He turned to War. “You want me to do
what
?”

War sighed. “Enter the shack.”

“But not through the door?”

“No, not through the door. What would be the point in that? ‘Here’s your third challenge – walk through a door.’ No, I don’t think so.”

Drake studied the wall of the hut again. It was made of a heavy corrugated iron, rusted in patches, but still completely solid.

“But I can’t walk through the wall,” Drake said. “I mean, it’s impossible.”

“To Drake Finn, maybe, but not to Death,” War explained. “Death can go anywhere. Nothing can hold it out, not distance, not magic and certainly not a rusty sheet of metal.”

“It’s a belief thing,” Pestilence said encouragingly. “
I
believe you can do it. The question is – do you?”

“No,” said Drake, shaking his head. “I don’t.”

“Go on, give it a try,” said Pest. “I bet you’ll be a natural.” Drake looked doubtful. He brushed a hand against the metal. It still felt solid.

“OK, I’ll try,” he said, prompting a short burst of excited applause from Pestilence.

Taking two paces back, Drake lined himself up with the side of the metal shack. He straightened his back, held his head high and closed his eyes.

“Here goes,” he muttered, then he took one pace, two paces, thr—

THUD.

Drake opened his eyes. His face was pressed against the side of the shack.

“Oh, aye, a natural,” War snorted.

“It’s impossible,” Drake insisted. “I can’t do it.”

“Because you didn’t believe you could,” War said. “You shuffled up there like you were queuing for your pension. You were just waiting to hit the wall.”

“Of course I was!” Drake snapped. “I knew I was going to.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” War roared. Startled by the sound, a flock of nearby birds took to the air in panic. “There
is
no wall! Not to you! Nothing can keep you out!”

He pointed to a spot some ten metres away from the shack. “Get over there,” he growled. “Take a run up at it, don’t slow down, just pretend it’s not there and you’ll sail right through.”

“But—”

“
Now!
” War bellowed. Drake could tell from the way the veins were standing out on the giant’s forehead that he probably shouldn’t argue. He walked over to the spot and turned to face the hut. It suddenly looked to be a long way away.

“Right, now run,” War barked.

“Fast as you can.”

“Fast as I can,” Drake said. “Right.”

He sprang forward like a sprinter off the blocks, his hands bunched tightly into fists.

“You can do it, Drake,” he heard Pest cry, and then he was past the other horsemen, powering on, throwing himself at full speed at the rigid metal barrier...

A flash of panic filled his head.
Rigid metal barrier
.

He hit it shoulder-first and his whole skeleton shook with the impact. There was a sharp squeal that Drake at first thought must be Pestilence, but then the wall collapsed, and Drake’s momentum carried him through on top of it.

There was more squealing from the other walls as the metal tore, and they slowly folded in like a house of cards on top of him.

Drake didn’t think he could feel any pain, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. He lay there, just in case, pinned beneath the corrugated iron. Eventually, a pair of powerful hands lifted the walls away.

“Well, that was one way to get inside,” Pestilence said, smiling cheerfully. “But maybe we should try something else?”

Drake looked down at his school uniform. It was stained with patches of orange, where it had come into contact with the rust. His shoulder throbbed where it had connected with the metal. More than that, though, there was another sensation niggling at him. Shame. He was embarrassed by his performance. Behind War’s beard, Drake was sure the giant was laughing.

He looked up and saw that the sky overhead was slowly darkening.