CHAPTER ONE
It was no summer’s day that’s for sure. The wind felt like a freezing cold battle axe swiping against his body and the rain was making a torrent and a waterfall of every wee bump in the road and along the path that took him around the city and past the schoolyard where a lonely looking bully sat by himself on top of a massive yellow slide and as the rain splashed down on the pudgy angry boy, he sat there like a boiling kettle; warmer than Frenchman’s affection as he steamed and curdled, probably thinking about the dad he hadn’t seen since he was ripe enough to be moulded into an impressionable thug.
Shane couldn’t remember too much of his school days, just that he’d once been that lad sitting on top of the slide, unsure why it was he was so damn angry, wanting to make rain and fire with his clenched fists and his curling tongue.
Maybe it’s unfair to assume that the young buy on the slide fit some tired cliché. Maybe that’s just poor story telling. And if we had more time I’d go into it but Shane’s up ahead, past the school and nearing the old church; now I say old church when, in fact, it’s really just a repossessed council crack house.
It sounds nicer saying old church, kind of rolls off the tongue, more homely than the alternative really.
“Fadder, any craic?” said Shane, having a bit of fun.
“Mornin son. You look a bit worse for wear. Ya right are ya? Ya wanna come in for a bit, get out o da rain?” said The Priest.
“Tanks anyway fadder. It’s barely a drizzle. So how are tings?”
“Good, very good.”
“Ya look busy,” Shane said, seeing scores of addled men, women and dogs walking in circles chasing an air of hope, their withered souls, or that thing they forgot.
“I do like a challenge. Tis da lord who said, if you build it, dey will come” said The Priest.
“I believe dat was Field of Dreams but da metaphor, it’s still grand.”
“Honestly, I tink it would be easier to build around a playground. Seriously. Dese lads, dere’s no hope. And da one’s dat do open deir eyes, when dey do, dey look mad as fuck. Sure if dey found Jesus’ ashes I’m sure he’d be straight in deir pipes. Start young. Get em when dey can’t tink for demselves. Dat’s de key” said The Priest.
“Dere’s a great deal of wrong in what ya just said fadder and I know ya mean well. Yer not using dat in yer mass are ya? I’d leave out da whole schoolyard ting. Could be taken out a context ya know?” said Shane.
“I don’t, no.”
“I’d best be off,” said Shane.
The Priest; with a concerned look in his eye, rested his two hands on Shane’s soaking shoulders.
“Dey want da song, Shane.”
“Who, what song?”
“Da one in yer head. Da one ya sang last night at da pub. Dey know and dey want it and dey’re coming after ya Shane.”
“Who, who da fuck is after me?”
“Da police; not Garda, da English, MI-5 I tink, showed me deir badges an all. Not just dem dough, dere were some American lads too and anudder man. Not like da udders.”
“Not da fuckin tax department?”
The Priest looked nervously over his shoulder.
“It’s da devil himself. He’s ere, takin names.”
“Sounds serious,” said Shane.
As The Priest whispered in his ear, behind them, the junkies stirred and dispersed like a school of fish, frightened by a skipping stone.
“Shane, dis is important. Ya have ta remember what I tell ya, ok?”
“I will, yeah,” said Shane.
“I’m not jokin around here, dis is serious. De song, can ya remember it? Any of it? Dis is important Shane.”
“Everyone keeps harpin about dis feckin song. What da fuck happened last night?”
“Dat’s not important now Shane. Ya have to remember dat song. Ya can’t forget it and tell someone, ya have to tell someone. Yer in danger lad. Everyone ya know. Da fate o da world; it’s in yer feckin hands. God help us all” said The Priest, hardly believing this truth any more than the toothless punk before him.
“Are you sound fadder? Yer soundin a bit like meself” said Shane.
“Listen to me. It’s important dat you remember dis. Ta save us all, ta save the world; you must drink. And the junk too, ya keep da needle close to yer veins, ya hear me, lad. Da fate o da world is in yer hands.”
“Jaysus. Is dat yer approach now? What are ya, Professor Xavier? Ya got a crack house full a super heroes back dere?”
“Listen to me Shane. A trumpet will sound; tree times. Before da tird, ya have ta….”
The Priest fell to his knees clutching at his throat as if there were something clasping his neck and digging its grip tighter, closing the door to his lungs. His face turned bright red as his nails dug into his skin.
Shane jumped behind him and slapped him on the back, thinking he was probably choking on a peanut or an oddly shaped crisp. While he slapped away at the old man’s back; and as he looked around for someone more fitting to do the job, he caught the eye of a mysterious stranger, standing amidst the flurry of scuttling junkies inside the church.
The Priest went from bright red to an odd whitish blue colour and he fell from Shane’s hands, slipping straight through his lame fingers and slumping on the ground like a heavy, old priest shaped bag of sand.
His body thumped on the ground but all Shane could hear was the whisperings of the dark stranger inching towards him from inside the church; its face hidden behind a veil of seclusion as a long black cloak covered its entire body making the void of its appearance.
He felt like a tiny star, catching sight of a black hole creeping up from some parallel reality; as if maybe he shouldn’t have seen it and that maybe it were a trick of his eye or maybe that trick was less of a delusion as he would better himself to think and more of an unraveling.
His mind was awash with the sound of an ocean slapping against a rocky cove; massive waves pounding against his conscious shore and as the sea receded, the hiss of the ocean spilled up into the air and inside of that unnerving sound came a warning.
“Come and see,” it said in a horrible hiss.
And he saw.
“Fuck dis,” said Shane, backing away from the dead priest and almost tripping as he stepped back off the curb onto the road; the dark figure still walking towards him, its voice still hissing in his mind.
He turned and ran, disappearing into the lashing rain with the wind howling his name. He ran down the street, past the row of hair dressers with the old ladies who preferred the term hair dresser and thought the title hair stylist was just being too precocious and whoring; best left for ‘those’ types of girls, the ones with glitter round their eyes and large silver buckles on the tips of their shoes.
The old ladies waved and blew kisses as he ran past the windows and open doors. His eyes were shut and he was running on automatic as he once did on many an eve, stumbling home from the pub or a dumpster, wherever he had managed to wake and find himself.
And with a Clydesdale’s sight, he passed every row of hair dressing ladies and so focused was he that he didn’t see how in the reflection of every window and in the glass on every door, the shadowy dark figure was being swept along behind him.