The God-Abolishers

Jack Trump awoke from the nightmare drenched in sweat. It was a familiar part of his life now. The memories of the trenches would seem like reality up until the point where his own body would be cut down by a swathe of bullets and he would launch, bolt upright, in his bed. His shaking hands would run over his skin and find sweat instead of blood. It would not yet be dawn but he would rise, wash and dress himself, the nightmare still lodged, like small shards of glass, inside his every movement. Even as he walked into the London streets a scream or a cry for help would invade his ears, as clear and as real as the hawkers selling their papers on the side streets and the cobbles.

****

London, 1920 was a world of mist. In the early morning, in the early evening, it was as if the country was cloaked in the stuff, like a second skin. Jack stopped for a paper and headed for his local café, seeing the detritus of the London night scene brush by him as he walked; the ladies of the night, their ankles chains shimmering, even as their make-up slipped; the drunk and the destitute. It was another form of nightmare to see the once proud nation fallen so far, a notion that was only supported by the headlines in the newspaper. As Jack took his seat, the morning’s reports screamed of betrayal, debauchery and moral decay.

Be that as it may, there were no unusual stories that were his private domain. Since being handed a coin on the battlefields, a penny that could detect supernatural matters and all things unearthly, he had made it his duty to seek out and erase such creatures. With an increasing weariness, he noted how tragic these figures were, either borne from spite, necessity or sheer hopelessness. Few were malevolent and fewer still were as skilled in machinations as those in power or those who lived behind the veil of decency and self-righteousness. Jack sipped his coffee and wondered what country he lived in when the monsters of the night were not as depraved as the people of daylight.

Setting the paper down, Jack overheard the people on the next table talking of something that perturbed him. It was the same topic he had heard whispers of on his long walk down to the docks the last few mornings. At first he had dismissed it as tittle-tattle, but the frequency of it seemed to be more than coincidence. He ordered another coffee and craned his neck ever so slightly; not only to hear the conversation but also to check to see if he could detect any trace of alcohol on the talker’s lips.

“It’s a demon, I swear, Vera, down the Old King’s Road. I’ve seen him with my own eyes and I’m not the only one. There’s talk he’s something like the Ripper, the way he hides inside the mists, like he does.” The woman drummed her fingers against the Bible and looked at it, as if reading from a script. “You mark my words, love; it’ll bring nothing but trouble to have sorts like that prowling around here.”

The women, charity workers, left soon after, but the thread of their conversation was picked up by others. The unfortunate was nick-named ‘The Prowler’ before the hour was out and Jack detected something in the air, panic or just a break from the inertia that would give this story legs. He dipped his hands into his pockets under the pretence of paying and ran his fingertip along the ancient coin. Jack felt nothing, no heat, which thereby meant no threat. As he left the café, Jack left the newspaper on the table but made a note in his mind to follow up the gossip that he knew he would soon snowball into something far greater and dangerous.

****

Sure enough, by the next morning, the story had been plastered over the front pages of the rags. Though little facts were present, the lewd sketch of the creature was enough to drive the locals into frenzy. It had become the talk of the town along the streets, and rumours of a witch-hunt were already in the offing. As was always the case with such rabble rousing, the ideas were poorly thought out and the execution, he knew, would be something close to catastrophe. Perplexed as he was with the coins’ inactivity, he resolved to walk the mists that night and get to the bottom of what appeared to be more a phantom case than actual phantom.

****
        
Saturday night, his one night off from his dock-work, was the familiar chorus of decadence that he chose to ignore. Jack slipped into the side streets, so caked with grime and poverty that even the rats refused to scuttle along there and looped back round towards the places the supposed beast had last been sighted. The backstreets were truly the stuff of repulsion. Bloody long stemmed needles sat along the dirt, the back street abortionists too lazy too even clear up after their latest, poorly performed horror show. Further along were the discarded vials and broken glass and along the fences, shreds of whores’ clothes, cheap squares of material hanging from nails, where they had been pushed and pulled all in the name of a night’s trade. Jack walked on, wondering for a moment if this was not some fresh sleep-induced nightmare, one that did not involve the trenches but rather just the cast-off screams of the capital.

As he reached the fringes, Jack looked back to the bright lights of the city. From a distance, like any scene of chaos, it almost looked beautiful. It brought to mind the battlefields, where the plumes of smokes and red-lit flares were almost celebratory. Without the painted faces and fat, greedy fingers, the view was almost satisfactory until it was punctuated with a scream, whether in horror or fake ecstasy, to remind him of the grime that lived inside the lights. Something slipped inside the shadows and brought him back to his rightful mind. Jack twisted back inside the whips of fog and began to follow the apparition.

It was a skill he had picked up in the field, the ability to stalk his prey. He had been sent out on sniper missions or late night sorties, the mission clear and the result final. It had been something he had loathed himself for being good at, the hunting, and in his mind it had always seemed cowardly. Upon finding the target the soldier would begin pleading, weeping and falling on his hands and knees. Once, a German responsible for the death of an entire platoon, had clutched a teddy bear sent to him from his mother, as he begged in his own wetness for his life.
 
“You there,” Jack said quietly, the coin dead in his pocket, the book of spells inside his coat unopened. The figure turned slowly and not without grace. The man walked towards Jack and made none of the cowards’ choices; he did not raise his arms, he did not rattle off pleas with Tommy-gun speed. He simply made his way over, making Jack feel as much the intruder as hunter.

“You have come for me?” the man said quietly. The fedora on his head was drawn at an angle, covering most of his face. Only the right side of his cheek was visible, and a part of his mouth.

“I come for no-one. I work for no-one,” Jack replied. He saw a flash of the man’s hand; saw how gnarled and red it looked. He recognised the wound and immediately realised he was not in the presence of a monster. The monster, he understood, was in the whispers and the idle, lazy gossip. “Where you in the War?”
 
“Where the mines were set,” he muttered, withdrawing his exposed hand from view, deep into his pocket. “You seek the reward from the newspapers?” In the distance another scream echoed long and clear, followed by a smattering of applause, a cheer.
 
“I seek nothing. The rags offer reward when I see no evidence of a criminal,” Jack went on, drawing himself a few inches closer. The man’s uniform became visible under the weak streetlamp; a medal shone, then another.

“And yet I can see the mob gathering over yonder, preparing for the night.” He briefly titled his head up and Jack followed his glance. True enough, at the docks, a sea of lit torches rose up into the air. “They call me the God-Destroyer.”

“You still wear your uniform, sir,” Jack said, dragging his eyes away from the gang. “I calculate they will be upon us inside an hour, at the latest.”

“I wear this not through pride but need. I own nothing else. I served my Queen and country, yet she chooses not to remember me. I stepped from the hospital gates and into the mud and the filth as sure as if I had been dropped straight into Hell. Tell me friend, do you have nightmares?” The man twitched for a moment, waiting for an answer.

Jack swallowed hard; he had talked to no-one of his trauma and had intended it to stay in that fashion.

“Yes. I remember the battlefields and the noise. Most of all, I recall the faces of the wounded and the cries of the dead. All of it comes back to me, every night, without fail.” Jack was aware his voice was crumbling with his confession. He looked up and saw the man nodding. Even in the darkness, he felt his sympathy, the honesty of his slight, precise movements. He wondered if soldiers were forever destined to only ever confess in the shadows, the mists and the darkness. “And you, sir?”

“I never suffer with my thoughts of the battlefield,” he said. In a flash, he edged forward, angling his profile to fit inside the weak beam of the lamp-light. He removed the hat and faced Jack fully. “My waking moments are the stuff of nightmares, you see.”

Two thirds of his face, the sections previously covered by the fedora, were burnt and knotted, so the skin seemed to sit both in lumps and with an odd film of sheen. The left eye was non-existent, little more than a hole where the eye-lid drooped too low. The nose was gone, as if eaten and the lip was a thin sliver, forcing the poor soul to sneer, even when the emotion would not be present in him. It was the portrait of an angel, scarred.
 
“Do you see, sir?” he repeated, lingering for a final moment before replacing the hat over his head, adjusting the angle until the shadow was achieved.

“I see a wounded soldier sir, nothing else,” Jack said. The force had come back to his voice, and he wondered what that said about him; to be so weak when speaking of himself and yet be bold when faced with others’ horror.

“And yet London sees a Devil,” the man muttered, looking out to the flaming beacons slowly moving their way.

“This place only looks outward, never inward, sir,” Jack said, following his glance to the mob. In half an hour, they would be upon them. “I fear if they allowed themselves introspection, the capital itself would fall into insanity in a heartbeat. Look to the mob, full of preachers and ministers; that is how they treat those who are different. They are blowhards, sir and nothing more.”

“You will not join them?” the man asked. For the first time an air of vulnerability had slipped into his voice, behind the steel. Jack recognised it from his time in the field hospitals; the bravado of the soldier, inflected with the doubts of man.

“I would rather spit in their faces than shakes their hands. But what will you do, sir? I fear you will need to make a decision sooner rather than later. The war, if nothing else, taught me that mob rule does not follow reason.”

Jack heard the men shout something incoherent, followed by the breaking of a bottle.

“I cannot escape with pockets this light,” he said, the steel returning to his voice. Jack shook his head, tiring of the bravado-ruse. Already, a plan was formulating in his head.

“And if you did, where would it take you?” The beacons flickered brighter and he put twenty minutes until their arrival.

“Australia: A place where I can work without discrimination. A country I can find doctors willing to save people without having their palms greased first. But none of this matters-”
 
“Then let’s go. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We’ll work as best we can and see where the morning takes us. Come,” Jack said, his heart suddenly elevated from its normal, maudlin state. He stepped into the alleyways, diverting from the path of the mob and didn’t wait for the man to follow. Instead he heard his footsteps crunch uncertainly behind him, all questions put to one side for the time being.

****

Jack used his skills as a hunter that night, though it was not blood he sought. Instead he guessed at who would be in the gang and visited their houses, their places of work, raiding each one. For good measure, he rolled a rich sot of a man, removing his wallet and pocket watch, before levering him back into the alleyway he found him in. By the time the moon dipped, the money in their pockets had begun to slow them both down. Before they reached the dockyard, the man had changed his dress and carried a duffel bag of rich man’s clothes and trinkets. Jack used his knowledge of the ferries to pay for the ticket and secure a private cabin with a side entrance. He jammed it into the man’s hand before pride could interfere.

“The details are printed on the back of the ticket,” Jack said, pointing to the gateway. “It’s a long journey. It’s a shame we didn’t steal a few books,” he went on and was surprised to hear himself laugh.

“I have this,” the man said, lifting a thick book from his coat. “I write every day. I did back in the trenches, in the hospital, even these last few months, sleeping rough. Your address?” He held out the diary and Jack took it, scrawling his details on the inside of the back cover, before returning it.

“Do you ever read the Greeks? I find them to be a source of hope. The say our memories of childhood are ‘a sacred drop of immortal water which prevents us from dying.’ I repeat that every day to keep myself alive.”

The last few stars began to evaporate in the sky. He reached out and the two shook hands. Jack watched him as he walked away into the gaps and the mists, pausing only to scale the stairs, before being swallowed by the ship. Minutes later, it crawled from the port, almost drifting into the sea before picking up steam and disappearing from sight.

****
   
Jack sat at his table in the café, settling the newspaper down on the table as he ordered his coffee. The headlines were splashed luridly across the front page. A brave troupe of men had tracked down the monster of Old King’s Road and justice, for King, Queen and Country, had been served. For a moment he wondered if the story had been entirely fabricated or if some poor creature had been sacrificed to satisfy the pomp and the bloodlust of the cruel, foolhardy men. As he folded the paper, the people around him began to stir, whispering, cheering, before clapping and rising to their feet.
 
The men walked down the street, their chests puffed out, their extinguished lanterns in their hands like trophies, accepting and milking the applause as they strode into the nearest inn. None of the crowd noticed their skin was already soaked through with booze and a few of them were barely fit to stand. Nor did they choose to see the fierce red glint to their eyes, swollen with pride, lust and hatred. None of this was noted, even as the reporters around him busily scribbled the scene around him. These were London’s heroes, Jack realised, as he moved out of his seat- having steadfastly remained in his chair-much to the glares and disapproval of the crowds minutes before.
       
Jack watched the end of the sorry affair and then looked out to the sea. He watched the dawn shimmer across the waves of the sea and wished his friend good fortune, his own thoughts turning to one day escaping. The boat was a memory now but at least a good one, one that he could cherish the next time Jack woke, smeared in his own fears and anxieties. Exhausted, he stepped away from the crowd and looked towards the dawn-light. Briefly, he looked back to the tavern and saw the men gathered, the patrons all around them raising their jugs in a toast. The true God-abolishers, Jack Trump thought, noting he felt no sadness at the notion but only seething, burning fury.