The Final Winter

Chapter Thirty-Six

“They’re not going to give up are they?”

“No,” Lucas confirmed. “Not until they have you.”

Harry raised the broom in front of him, hoping it would work as well as last time. “What will they do to me?”

“Send you to Hell.”

Harry nodded. “Thought so.” He eyed up the line of Angels, wondering which one he should go for first. He decided to do as he did last time and aim for the middle, but before he had chance, a pillar of fire zigzagged towards him, sending him into a sideways dive. The snow cushioned his fall but was still jarring enough to knock the smut-handled broom from his grasp.

Harry looked up just in time to see another wall of flames arcing in his direction. He rolled over, barely managing to dodge the burning death, but found himself even further away from his only weapon. “Lucas,” he shouted. “The broom.”

Lucas nodded, searched the snow, located the broom, and then went for it. He was too slow though and Kath got to it first.

“Great,” said Harry. “Throw it here.”

Kath drew her arm back and looked as though she was going to hurl the broom in his direction, but then she didn’t release it. Instead she held it in front of herself and started to examine it. “Without this, you have no way of defending yourself, right?”

“Yes,” said Harry. “That’s why I need it, now!”

Kath walked away from him and, incredibly, started making her way over to the row of Angels. Specifically, she approached the one in the centre, the one that Harry had intended to attack. She held the weapon in front of herself, keeping the Angels at bay despite the fact that none of them moved an inch. “You just want Harry, right? What will you do for me if I give him to you?”

She waited for an answer from the thing, but received none.

Kath jabbed and wiggled the broom in the Angel’s face, not getting close enough to hit, but making her willingness to do so clear. “I asked you a question, so have some manners. Remove your hood and answer me!”

Harry was in shock. Firstly, that the woman was betraying him, but secondly that she was addressing an Angel like an impolite five-year-old. It was surreal. Even more surreal was that the Angel did as it was told. It removed its hood.

Beneath the old, grey cloth was something Harry had not expected. Maybe if he thought about what an angelic stereotype would look like it would have been less surprising, but seeing the beautiful face appear from beneath the tattered hood was not what Harry had expected. The Angel had shining yellow hair that fell in thin tresses across a flawless complexion. His eyes were a breath-taking cyan and the darkness seemed to light up around their gaze. The Angel’s piercing blue orbs were currently studying Kath.

Kath was immediately mesmerised and Harry could see the same shock in her face that he no doubt had on his. She still held the broom out in front of her, but it was slowly lowering as though the weight of it was becoming too much.

Lucas moved up beside Harry, “That would be Lord Michael himself.”

Harry considered for a moment. “You mean from the bible?”

“No, I mean from real life. That is God’s Field General himself, Archangel Michael. My brother, the Angel of death.”

Harry looked at Lucas. “If he’s your brother can’t you make him stop?”

“You really don’t understand family do you, Harry boy? One thing about Michael is that the only person he listens to is his Daddy. That’s why he was always favourite. Bloody eejit!”

Harry didn’t have time to play agony aunt, something was happening up ahead. The Angel in front of Kath – The Archangel Michael. Jeez! – was producing something from within his cloak. Something long and metal that ignited in flames as it was pulled free.

“There she is,” said Lucas. “The beauty herself. You know that back in the day that sword belonged to me? Bastard took it from me during the Holy war. Still, I guess it looks better on him anyway.”

Harry shook his head. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

“The fiery sword of damnation. The very sword that turned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes.”

This is really it, isn’t it? The end of the world. God has finally called last orders and I’m stuck here facing down the Angel of Death with his flaming penis extension. If it wasn’t so goddamn insane, I think I’d be laughing my ass off.

Harry watched as the Angel raised his sword, burning the cold air and changing it to a thick, acrid smoke. Kath was still mesmerised and Harry wondered if she was under some kind of thrall or if she had just gone into shock after finally realising the situation she was in. The answer was unimportant as Michael brought down his flaming sword in a vicious snap. It hissed and spat as Kath’s blood congealed on its shaft, turning to black powder and peppering the snow. Somehow Kath managed to turn around and face Harry, and for a moment he thought he had only imagined the sword going through her neck.

Then her head started to tilt forward, independent of the rest of her body. Harry saw that the blade had indeed gone through her, so seamlessly that she obviously hadn’t felt a thing. Kath’s head fell to the snow, spewing it’s fluids into the air like a decorative garden feature. Her body remained standing however, gushing blood more heavily, spraying it into the air like a gory water cannon. The cracked end of her spine pocked from her neck, flapping its severed spinal cord like an agitated cobra. Harry winced when Kath’s lifeless body finally fell forward and buried itself in the snow and turning it red.

Despite the fact Kath had clearly been a bitch, Harry suddenly felt very isolated by her loss; a lone man surrounded by callous Angels and a wisecracking Devil. He needed Steph more than ever. If this really was ‘the end’ then he wanted to be with her.

Harry ran for it, leaving Lucas behind and not seeing any reason to ask him to follow. He ploughed through the snow with all his energy, kicking and clawing with one thing on his mind: Steph! He had no idea where he was going and only hoped that it was towards The Trumpet and not away from it. With the apocalyptic freeze, as well as an apocalyptic army of beautiful Angels trying to send him to Hell, Harry knew that the rest of his life was most likely measured in minutes rather than hours. For so long Harry had wanted nothing but to die, to leave the world and all of its pain behind, but right now staying alive long enough to get to Steph was the only thing on his mind.

The snowfall seemed to increase every second. It was up to Harry’s waist and still rising. Before long, there would be no world left. No buildings, no roads, no rivers. Nothing. Just unending snow, rising. Rising. Rising.

Harry struggled onwards, each step seizing up his calves and stabbing the tender muscle with icy daggers. If only he could go back and do the right thing. He knew back then that killing Thomas Morris was wrong, knew it hours before he had watched the glistening light of life leave the man’s eyes. He knew it was wrong even more when he saw the regret and the sorrow in the man’s eyes just before he died. Thomas Morris killed Harry’s family, but at the moment Harry started to murder him, he knew that the man was sorry. He knew because Thomas never struggled. He accepted the punishment for what he had done and even seemed happy about it.

Now the whole world was accepting punishment for what Harry had done. He imagined the billions of people that had frozen to death in their homes already or that had been callously reaped by the Angels. He wondered how many people were still alive also, trying to convince their children that the snow would stop soon and that everything would be okay, that it was just bad weather. Harry started to weep, but wiped the tears away. He had to keep going; didn’t deserve time to stop and cry. When the Angels finally sent him to Hell he would welcome it, because that was where he belonged, but not now. Not yet.

Up ahead, Harry saw the dark rectangle of a building up on a hill. It had to be The Trumpet, looking down at him from its elevated resting place. With renewed vigour, Harry began to dive and leap through the snow, sinking and wobbling with every step. He was going at a snail’s pace, he knew, but gradually the building was coming into view and it did indeed turn out to be the pub.

“Thank God,” said Harry, before considering the words he’d spoken. “Actually, screw that and fuck God.”

He reached the bottom of the hill and looked up at the pub. It was dark, deserted and lifeless. A dead building in a condemned world, but inside could be the only person Harry cared about anymore. He started to wade through the snow and up the steps, feeling the broken brickwork beneath his feet. Inside his stomach, butterflies rioted.

As he neared the top, Harry felt their presence. He felt the Angels. “Damn you,” he shouted, turning around to face them. They stood at the bottom of the hill, appearing from nowhere. Each had their hoods down now, exposing an endless row of beautiful faces and full heads of blonde and brown gossamer hair. They were flawless – angelic – but Harry knew that they brought only death and misery. “Damn you,” Harry shouted again. “Just let me see her.”

He turned and ran, determined to make it back into the pub where he would be safe. Lucas had said the Angels could not set foot inside a den of inequity and that meant Steph must still be safe inside. Nearly there, just a few more feet.

Harry stopped in his tracks, falling into the snow and looking up at the figure that blocked his way. He thought about defending himself before realising he could not. There was nothing he could use, not even the porno-wrapped broom. Harry looked down at the snow, defeated and not wishing to witness the method of his execution. “Okay, you got me. Just get it over with.”

“Get what over with, Harry Boy?”

Harry looked up. “Lucas!”

“Aye,” Lucas offered out his hand. “I thought you were never going to get here, fella. Took your sweet time.”

Harry smiled, happy to see the Devil. He took Lucas’ hand and hoisted himself up, quickly pushing past and barging against the pub’s door. It was frozen shut. He was just about to cry out in defeat when Lucas strolled up to join him.

“Keep your hair on, lad.” Lucas placed a hand on the door making steam immediately appear. The frost on the metal was melting. After a couple of seconds, Lucas banged his fist once on the door and it swung open slowly. Lucas looked at him and grinned. “Three millennium in the Hellzone Boy Scouts.”

Harry nodded. “No shit?”

Harry made his way inside and headed for the bar, the sudden feeling of an even, solid floor disorientating his weary legs. The entire room was dark and no longer lit by multiple candles, but Harry had been there enough times to know where he was going. He made it to the bar in six blind steps and was shocked to find Peter’s dead body on the floor. Harry could only just make out the boy’s features as all but one of the bar’s candles had extinguished. It wasn’t something he had time to mull over now though. He’d pay his respects later.

Grabbing the remaining candle, Harry made his way behind the bar and into the corridor behind. Right away the freezing temperature told him something was wrong. Earlier the corridor had acted as a flume for the warm air of the fire in the cellar, but now it was cold. That meant the fire was out.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Harry took the steps two at a time, luckily making it down to the bottom without miss-stepping in the darkness. As his feet planted on the cellar floor, he moved the candle in a quick semi-circle in front of him. The room smelt heavily of smoke, but the barrel fire was unlit. Next to it was the unmoving form of Old Graham. Until tonight, Harry had never seen a recently dead body before – not even his wife and child as they had died in the hospital – but he now knew without inspection that the old man had perished. Harry felt his gorge rise, the fear and sickness taking a hold of him as his mind screamed out with grief. He span around, illuminating the dark corners of the cellar, searching desperately

He found Damien first and crouched down to feel the lad’s cheek. It was stone cold and Harry realised he was dead too. What concerned Harry most was that Damien’s mid-section was covered in blood and that, despite the cold, the boy did not have on his thick puffer jacket. Did somebody stab him?

The answer came to Harry quickly.

Nigel? Damn it. I can’t believe I knocked Damien out when he was the one who saved Steph all along. Now he’s dead and I’ll never get to say sorry for my mistake.

Beside Damien, beneath the same pile of duvets, was Jess. Dead as well, Harry immediately noticed. He felt numb at the sight of such a young and pretty girl frozen to death like a block of ice. He shone the candle to her face and saw that her lips were blue and starting to frost over.

Then Harry noticed a third body beneath the blankets. He was paralysed, not wanting to move because that meant he would have to acknowledge whatever he would find beneath the final blanket.

Steph lay, swaddled up to the eyeballs by a lasagne of sheets and blankets, half-a-dozen layers deep. She looked as delicate and as beautiful as Harry had ever seen her and he finally allowed himself to cry. He reached out and touched her face. Like the other’s it was ice cold. She was wearing Damien’s puffer jacket. Probably knew he was dying with or without it. He must have wanted her to have it instead. It wasn’t enough though.

Harry shook his head, a deep darkness spreading throughout his soul. There was nothing else left. “I’m sorry,” he said to Steph’s unmoving form. “I’m sorry that I caused all this and that I never got to say goodbye. I used to think I came here every night to get drunk and forget about the past, but tonight I realised that I kept coming back to see you. You were the only person that allowed me to see that there would be a tomorrow and that it would be easier than today. It was you that took away my pain, not the booze, but thanks to me there will be no more tomorrows.”

“…Harry?”

The word was soft, below even a whisper, but he heard it. A few moments passed and Harry started to think that his crippled mind was perhaps just playing tricks on him.

But then he heard it again.

“Harry,” Steph whispered again, louder this time.

She’s alive!

“Steph! Steph, can you hear me?”

It didn’t seem like she could, but she knew he was there. It was obvious by the look in her eyes. “Harry… I… missed you.”

“I missed you too, Steph.”

She smiled. “I knew you’d come back. I always knew you were a good man. That you… would end up being my hero… one day.”

Harry was stunned. “I wish that were true, Steph. I really do, but I let you down. I let everyone down.”

Steph shook her head, eyes still closed as though she were reciting a dream. “No, Harry. The only person you ever let down is yourself. You’re a good man, but you don’t… you don’t see it.”

Harry wiped the tears and snot from his face. “You know what I wish, Steph?”

“No, Harry. What do you… wish?”

“I wish that instead of killing Thomas Morris that night, I’d have met you instead. Maybe you could have saved me… saved everything.”

Steph’s face lit up in a smile, but then went still. She didn’t reply.

“Steph,” Harry said, softly. “Hey, Steph, I just realised that you were my second chance. I’m sorry I blew it, but I’m going to put it right.”

Harry moved forward and kissed Steph on her lips. He wanted nothing more than for her to be alive a moment longer so that she could kiss him back, but he knew that she was gone. At least I got to say goodbye.

Harry stood up straight, tensing his cold muscles and testing each one to make sure they were still working and not completely frozen yet. Despite taking the steps two at a time on the way down, he took them individually on the way up, taking his time to digest just what he intended to do. He lit the corridor above with his candle and made his way to the bar. Lucas was already there waiting for him

Just the man I want to speak to.

“Harry Boy,” Lucas’s normal chirpiness was gone and he sounded solemn, like a guard on death row. He handed over a beer and took one for himself, lids already removed. Harry decided whatever happened, it would be the last beer he ever drank. One for the road.

“Lucifer,” said Harry, sipping the beer. “It’s time isn’t it?”

Lucas nodded. “It’s up to you, lad. To be honest I’m only here tonight because I’m duty-bound. The apocalypse and all that, you know? It’s kind of traditional.”

“That can’t be the reason.”

Lucas laughed his charming Irishman laugh. “No, you’re right. The truth of it is that Michael summoned me here to see the destruction of mankind. I guess they think I had a hand in bringing down the ceiling – in leading men astray and all that.”

Harry shrugged. “Well, didn’t you?”

Lucas swigged his beer down to the bottom third. “Well, yes and no. When I first fell from Heaven I hated you all – God’s most prized creation – and I sought to corrupt you all. I wanted to spoil God’s work and his image that lived in all of you, but you know what I found out?”

“What?” said Harry.

“I realised that I was wasting my time. Men were doing a fine thing of fucking stuff up on their own. I had a hand, here and there, sure, but Hitler, Bin Laden, Bundy, the nuclear-fuckin-bomb? All that shit was on you. The worst, most corrupt men that ever lived are mostly people I’ve never met.”

“Then why does Heaven blame you? Why have they brought you here to watch us die?”

“Because I fell in love with humanity. At first I rebelled against God because I wanted to live by my own rules and I sought about destroying you all, but after a while I realised that man wasn’t in God’s image, he was in mine. Men have spent hundreds of years fighting for their freedom just the same way as I and some of my brothers did against Heaven. Few hundred years ago, I stopped trying to destroy you and started living amongst you. I buried my anger with God and stopped being the bogeyman you write about in your religious texts. I’m no different to you all and just as sad to see that the party’s all over. The only reason I’m forced to witness it all end is for them to make a point.”

“What point?” Harry asked.

“To prove that anyone that goes against God will not be tolerated. Me included.”

Harry laughed.

“Why do you laugh, Harry Boy?”

“Nothing. I guess I just find it amusing to find out that the Devil is benevolent and God is wrathful.”

Lucas laughed too. “Well, I hope it teaches you to not always believe what the media says. Especially the ancient Aramaic right-wing media. The bible got me all wrong, I tell you.”

The two of them shared a laugh and finished their beers. After a few moments, Harry put his empty bottle on the bar.”

“Time to go, I guess, but before I do, can I ask you a question?”

Lucas shrugged. “You’ve done little else for the past few hours. Why stop now?”

Harry took that to mean, yes. “You mentioned the levels of Hell, earlier?”

“Aye.”

“Which is the worst?”

Lucas didn’t seem comfortable by the question. “Well… it’s all relative, really. The punishment tends to fit the crime.”

“I know that!” Harry was becoming impatient. He could feel his body shutting down under the constant attack of the cold and he had to finish this before he gave in to hyperthermia. “But surely some layers are worse than others. Where do the very worst go, like Judas Iscariot and Hitler? People like that?”

Lucas thought before he answered. “Well, if you listen to Dante Alighieri then there are just seven levels, but in truth the regions of Hell are never ending. Time and space there is eternal, but there is a deepest level reserved only for pure evil. Light does not exist there and neither does hope of any kind. It is suffering and despair without beginning and without end; a place where Evil reigns and flays the skin of any soul that dare venture there. It is a Hell beyond human understanding and no human, not even the vilest, has ever committed sin harsh enough to be sent there. It is deserving of no man. It was created to hold me.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “A Hell so bad that it was made to torture the Devil himself?”

Lucas nodded and seemed upset by the thought of it. “Aye, they call it… The Abyss.”

Harry took that information in and held onto it. The Abyss. The darkest, most desperate level of hell that is fit only for the Devil himself. A place of torture beyond anything a man could imagine. Okay, got it.

“Lucas,” Harry said. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you and I sincerely hope that the Abyss never claims you. Sounds strange to say, but I think you might actually be one of the good guys.”

Lucas laughed. “I have many names, but that’s a first.”

Harry shook the Devil’s hand and walked away, leaving his candle on the bar and entering the darkness.