Raven 2: Apocalypse

By Peter Allchin

Raven, a man who has battled with and defeated his own death. He lives in a world, where all religion was banned centuries ago. The world of Man, at the edge of extinction. Vampire hoards roam the land. Many have evolved into more than mere bloodsuckers, taking humans for slaves, food, and breeding stock.
The Earth, a planet devoid of natural resources, a place, ripped apart by nuclear wars. Food is a luxury and cannibalism is a natural way of life – the dead, the weak and the dying – nothing is wasted that could be eaten.
Raven and a small group of vampire hunters have retreated to South Africa, waiting for a sign that the Messiah has returned.
The story opens with Raven having returned from North Africa. From a distance he witnessed a nomad apparently preaching to a group of villagers. As the sun sets, vampires attack, killing all but the nomad, who is taken prisoner.
Is it a sign that the Second Coming has taken place?
Raven and his team take the perilous journey towards Jerusalem, where Raven believes the nomad has been taken.
If Raven is correct about the preacher, then the time of the Apocalypse is near. His destiny is not to stop it, but to make sure it happens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Allchin
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310322099

Peter Allchin

I have been writing for quite a few years - short stories; poetry, and two novels, one of which was published in Australia in paperback in 2007. Owing to unforeseen problems, the book is no longer available. I have also been published in magazines, although my style of writing - usually, but not always, black comedy and horror, is not for women's mainstream magazines. I also write poetry, preferring rhymes rather than free verse. And rhymes, as opposed to 'proper' poetry, is something I love to write, especially simple, silly verses, many of which are suitable for young children. I write because I enjoy creating something out of what might be an acorn of just a few words, or a phrase that came to me, or overheard in a conversation.

Book preview

Raven 2:

Apocalypse

by

Peter Allchin

Original copyright: 2009

Smashwords Edition: 2014

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Raven 2: Apocalypse

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Raven 2: Apocalypse

Chapter 1

As daylight slowly dissolved into dusk, I looked to the horizon and watched the sun dip slowly from view. I pictured it hiding away from the terrors of the night; as a child might cover its eyes with the bed-covers, lest it be caught by some unseen demon lurking in the shadows. Only the brave moon, cold and silvery, had the audacity to challenge the shadows of darkness. I slowly ambled back into my makeshift room that had been home to me for such long, the memories of our arrival were already fading.

The walls were plain; no pictures or ornaments. Furniture, consisting of a chair, a table - hewn from solid rock, supported by stone slabs, were my comforts in a world devoid of luxuries.

Although I had friends, there were two things in my life that I doubt I could not live without; my bible, and the man who saved me from death as an infant, took me into his care and taught me all that I know.

You read too much for an old man.

You read too little, I replied, without turning to see who had spoken. There was no need; I had known that voice for many years. I closed the delicate, faded pages of my bible. I had read it many times, however, it was the Book of Revelations that constantly captured my imagination.

I rose from the table, turned, and greeted my friend. I saw, in the poor light of my candle, a face ravaged with battle scars, break into a broad smile as I took his right hand in mine.

Raven, he said, hugging me like a brother. You have carried that Bible of yours for what seems an eternity. Surely, you must know every word of it by now!

I could recite it backwards.

So why bother keeping and reading it if it’s all in your head?

Do you remember your first kiss? Not a childish one, but your first full-on kiss that gave you a hard-on.

Bloody hell. Katrina. Now, she was some looker; sixteen going on twenty.

I smiled, remembering my own first taste of manhood. But what of the third, the fourth or the fifth?

I....

Memories fade and distort over time. Only the written word remains constant. The pages of this Bible are torn, and yellowed with age and use, but it is a companion that gives me solace. I read it and know it is what I read and not what I have thought I remembered.

Bridger contemplated what I had said. A wide grin almost cracked his ugly face. You’ll go far if you live long enough!

To live long enough. How long must that be? For myself, Bridger, and our companions, there is no answer.

Serious things, Raven, did you find him? Is he the one? Where is he? How can I meet him?

I’m sorry, I replied. I haven’t been back long and need to rest, and to read.

Jon Bridger put his hands on my shoulders and held me at arms length. You travel over four thousand miles, through some of the most inhospitable vampire territories, and all you want to do is rest, and read? Talk to me, man.

I broke away and poured both of us a drink, a vile smelling, vile tasting, concoction of something I’d rather not know about, but after swallowing just a drop of the stuff, it really felt as though it had hit the spot. Years of drinking it made no difference, no one ever got used to it. It had no proper name, as nothing in any language could do it justice. We usually drank it as a last resort to ease the pain of living.

Well? said Bridger, speaking and inhaling a large breath at the same time. Did you see him?

Yes, and no. I saw a man addressing a small crowd just outside a village, what was left of it. I watched in awe at the way he appeared to captivate the people, although I could not hear what he said, but he held the unruly crowd in his grasp. They seemed to hold on to his every word, so much so, they were oblivious to the danger they were in. How could they be so stupid? Stupid to be out in the open, as the sun disappeared below the horizon. Too late, I saw them; the vampires, but not one soul turned to see them as they began their attack. It was as though this man had mesmerized the villagers. The vampires seemed to come from nowhere and yet, everywhere. They surrounded them all; men, women and a few children. Babies, clinging to their mother’s breasts, were torn away and thrown to the ground before the women were savagely raped and murdered. No mercy was shown. There was nothing I could do and yet, throughout that gruesome scene, there was not one human drop of blood taken and drunk. It was a massacre, no more, no less.

I know Bridger saw in my face, the look of a man who had failed. He knew, however, I was not a man to throw caution to the wind. If I said there was nothing I could have done to stop the carnage, he would believe me.

What happened next? he asked.

The man who had been speaking, a nomad they called the new Messiah, was taken away and all was quiet. I walked among the remains of human life scattered in the bloody dust. A man and a child were alive, but beyond saving. Not for the first time have I had to end the pain and suffering of the living.

Bridger considered for a minute or two, then paced the small room. The vampires obviously believed him to be the one, but why take him alive? I'd have thought they would have preferred him dead!

I don’t know, but the frightening thing is, Jon, some of the vampire clans are evolving... Have, evolved.

So? he said, shrugging his shoulders. They have been doing that for centuries; males used to fight males, now they socialize and breed.

"This is different. On my return, I witnessed a pack of them metamorphose into wolf-like creatures. I have always been led to believe that creatures such as werewolves were no more than a figment of the imagination, born of myth and legend. I had accepted an invite by the village elder to eat, and sleep the night at his small camp. Everyone felt safe; there had never been an outright attack by vampires, until that night.

I was awakened by screams and sounds I had heard so many times before. I grabbed my crossbow and rushed outside. The moon was full, and I quickly brought down two vampires as they attempted to make off with a woman and child. The village elder, no doubt scared shitless, tried to escape on his horse. The vampires gave chase, but they quickly realized the horse could outrun them. It was then that I saw for the first time, the power that this new breed of vampire has. They changed into wolves so quickly, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Within seconds, they were upon their prey. The horse and the man were torn to shreds; literally ripped apart. Why they chased the elder and his horse, I don’t know . It may have been no more than the instinct to kill. It probably started out as a means of getting breeding stock and a few slaves. However, it was quick. The attack was over shortly after it began. I tell you, Jon, the vampires are winning the war.

No my friend. You yourself have often talked of someone who once told you that wars are made up of battles. We may lose a battle, but we have not necessarily lost the war!

This is different.

How?

I swallowed the liquid and almost wretched at it burned its way into my stomach. "How? Those evil bastards are screwing each other and humans, and multiplying like frigging rabbits. Some of them are older than me! But what of us eh? Mankind. What the hell have we as a race been doing? Most of what little food we have is synthetic, looks like shit and tastes like shit, and even that is all but gone since there are no factories any more to produce the stuff. Wild game is not only rare, most of the people have no means of paying for it when it is available, other than with their wife or daughter’s body! Fields lay fallow with disease-sodden soil. People murder each other so they can feed off the corpse. There is little water, and in this year of 4907, technology is so advanced, we have no power to use it! And you ask me how we can possibly fight an enemy that evolves, when all we can do is go back to being cavemen and cannibals?

I have been alive for over three thousand years, since defeating my own death in London. You are over two thousand years old. Tell me, what fabulous technological weapons do you carry so that we might win the bloody war, eh? Come on Bridger, tell me!

Bridger lowered his eyes. Knives, a crossbow and twin scimitars, he said; his voice little more than a whisper.

I’m sorry, Jon, what did you say?

I said, knives, a crossbow and twin scimitars.

Hoofrigginray! I fired my last bullet during the fall of Israel. That was over two thousand years ago! We have gone from ruling this planet to being no more than parasites to be hunted down and fed on by the creatures of the night, and our own race.

Bridger seated himself in my old creaky chair. I knew, like me, he wanted for the war with the vampires to be over, and to die in peace, but also like me, he knew he would never give up without a fight, and certainly not to a vampire.

When I first realized that I wasn't ageing, I thought maybe I had become immortal; impervious to death. After all, I had beaten my nemesis in St Judes church way back in 1888. Unlike Dorian Gray however, there was no picture of me locked away in an attic somewhere, hideously ageing whilst I stayed young.

If, prior to my meeting with Death, I had pondered the thought of immortality, I might have believed it to be no more than the slowing down of the metabolism to a point where the heart beats barely enough to keep the brain alive - where food is digested in such small quantities, that we barely need to eat. In fact, hibernation is as near to immortality as any animal can expect to get, albeit for a short period of time. At some stage, the fat reserves that keep our bodies warm and act as food when no other source is available, need to be replenished.

However, my metabolism hadn’t slowed down. I didn’t sleep for months or years at a time. My diet was much the same as it ever was. My beard and hair grew at the same rate. If I cut myself badly enough, the skin would form a bridge between the damaged area and leave a scar. In time, the scar would fade, but it would be there as a reminder of what had happened. Therefore, my skin was always changing, growing and replacing itself. But the gradual degeneration of the body wasn’t taking place. There were no wrinkles forming around my eyes, and the eyes themselves showed no sign of greying. They were as black as they had been since I first remember looking in a mirror.

Living and working in London, suffering, if that is the right word, my affliction, proved to be too much for me to endure. I roamed the world, not wishing to answer the many inevitable questions that would be thrown at me by those who knew me. I stayed in each place for no more time than I considered necessary. I kept changing my appearance; beard growth, length of hair and colour. I took to wearing spectacles with tinted lenses, hats of differing shapes and colours. All this, to hide myself away from prying eyes and being branded a freak.

More than two hundred years later, I found another who was in similar circumstances to myself; a woman, strong in character and body. We were a good team and remained together for nearly three quarters of a century. However, the feeling of immortality and being invulnerable, soon wears off when seeing that friend’s head being ripped from the body by a vampire. My revenge was quick, but far from sweet, and once again, I was alone with precious little other than memories and the fundamental need to carry on.

We must find him; the man they call the new Messiah. Bridger’s words brought me back to reality.

I agree. Get a message to Raphael, Sturges and Sarah. We’ll need seven horses, if they haven’t been eaten. Two of them loaded with as many bolts as we have and any that can be made in the few hours we have left. We’ll find food and water as and when needed.

I walked with Bridger to the entrance of the next sector. The Sudwala Caves in Mpumalanga had been our base for too many years and was home to about seventy people, including ourselves. We were a mixture of colours and creeds, but somehow, a mutual understanding has ensured that no babies could be conceived that could not be fed. In fact, the population, not only here in the caves, but everywhere I travelled, had been in a steep decline. Farming the land was little better than useless. If it wasn’t other communities stealing food, then it was the vampires, nightly destroying crops. To the best of my knowledge, we were the last surviving community for hundreds of miles, certainly to the north. And even here, the dead were eaten and not buried or cremated; such was the lack of meat.

The cave entrance was set high and well-hidden, with trip-wires connected to whatever will make a noise. Over the centuries, the caves and been explored and the living areas extended so that we each had a small section to call our own. The many drip-stones offer a fresh supply of water, although never enough for all, but unlike other caves we had migrated from, the Sudwala Caves had clean air flowing through them.

I walked to the cave entrance and watched as the sun dipped below the horizon. South Africa; once a shining jewel, now, no more than a faded relic of history. I gazed at the weed-covered rubble which extended mile after mile, until it was so far away, the eyes could no longer distinguish what it was they were looking at. A mighty city, built by man, destroyed by man. And so it was throughout the world. As a result, many species of wildlife made extinct in the name of progress, and now we were at the point of our own self-destruction.

Stars began to show as the sky darkened, and I returned to my quarters to take my rightful place in my chair, read the Bible, and pray.

Chapter 2

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

The following day, I began preparing the makeshift map we would need for the journey, although not needed, on account of my extensive travels, it might prove a worthwhile item should I fall. I had no more than a strong feeling of where the vampires might take the Messiah; Jerusalem, at one time, a thriving holy city. Now, she is a city in perpetual mourning, physical ruin and home to the vampire.

The journey, assuming we could average twenty miles a day, would hopefully take us no more than about six months to complete. I planned the route via Zimbabwe, Zambia, then onwards, through Tanzania. Fresh water and food should be fairly easy to find, although, the vampire colonies were beginning to take a stranglehold on these countries. Kenya, Sudan and Egypt would follow next; Egypt being my biggest worry as it was here that I saw the result of the horrific evolution of the vampire.

Sturges was the first to arrive and I told him what I had said to Bridger.

What makes you believe this Messiah is any different from the rest? he said, sneering in his usual way. Sturges was at best a cynic. The worst of him didn’t bear thinking about. Although quite short, at about five-feet-four inches, he was a good fighter and could track game better than any of us.

I don’t know, I replied. other than what I saw. He seemed to enthrall the people around him with his words and gestures, although, as I told Bridger, I was too far away to hear what he said.

"You always give us encouragement to believe in what we do, and because of that, we follow in your footsteps. Does that make you the Messiah?

No...

"So then...? Sturges raised his eyebrows and waited for an answer.

I found it severely irksome when some people, especially him, gave me the feeling that they wanted, no, demanded, proof as to the reliability of anything I had witnessed or what I believed.

I have nothing other than a gut feeling and the fact that the vampires took him alive. They must have somehow sensed that he wasn’t just another human.

Sturges picked up my Bible and leafed through the pages. You know as well as I do that religion, all religion, was banned a third of the way through the twenty second century. It was a worldwide agreement to stop the wars. Why do you still have one of these? he said, dropping the Bible on the stone table.

You’ve seen it many times. Why question me about it now?

Because you’re bloody-well obsessed by it. Nothing in that thing will ever help you, or us, to change the world for the better. You have achieved nothing other than to save the souls of a few miserly people that would have died at some point anyway!

I have read, and continue to read, my Bible because of a man I once met, I said, taking my book and packing it safely in my bag. A priest, and a prophesy.

That’s bollocks!

What’s bollocks? asked Sarah, Raphael at her side.

Sarah, her golden hair cut short, was the newbie. I still called her that, even though she joined us over six hundred years ago! I had never seen anyone load and fire a crossbow so fast and to such devastating effect. She joined the group a little after Raphael; the lean and very mean, Italian. Six-feet-six inches of solid muscle, topped by a boyish face and jet-black hair, raked back over his head.

This crap about Messiahs, priests and prophesies, replied Sturges, turning to meet the new arrivals.

What if it is? said Raphael, who was usually a man of few words. On the other hand, if Raven says it is true, what he has seen and done, then who are you, or any of us, to disbelieve him?

Raphael was a physical giant among men. He moved towards Sturges and stood just a few inches from him. Sturges was no coward, but whenever he and Raphael didn’t see eye to eye, it was always Sturges who backed down. I just hoped that the day would never dawn when he had the stupidity not to.

Look, you know I’ve never been one for all this holy second-coming crap. Sure, we’ve all beaten this thing called Death, but God, sending his own son here, to a place which is all but dead? To be honest, I find it all, well, bloody ridiculous really.

Okay, Sturges, I said. Let’s suppose you’re right. Let’s all sit down and do sod-all about our future shall we? The world’s going to end at some point, so why not just sit by and wait for it to happen? But what if this man who the vampires have taken, really is the Messiah? Do you not think it possible that this... Son of God, might be here to do what the Holy Book predicts?

Sturges relaxed and slowly moved away from Raphael.

When Christ was here the first time, I continued, he could have saved himself when he was crucified. He chose not to. What if he chooses not to again? There is a purpose to his being here, just like before, assuming he is the one. We have not been kept alive for the fun of it. This must be our time. The answer is in there, I said, pointing to the Bible.

Sarah, who had listened intently, spoke. There is news of another. A man, so I’m told, who has the power over life and death, like no other man alive.

You’ve said nothing to me! said Raphael. The annoyance in his voice showed how hurt he felt at not being confided in.

I’ve told no one, I knew about it a short while after Raven left. As you know, we get the odd refugee pass through from the north. I was out hunting on my own; there was nothing local, so I decided to go east. I was a good day’s ride from here when I came across a family from the Sudan. There wasn’t anything I could do about what they told me, so I decided to say nothing until Raven returned and we were all together.

We’re together now. So, what did they tell you? I asked.

A Sudanese slave escaped from his master...

A vampire master? asked Bridger.

Apparently. As we know, very few humans can afford slaves. Anyway, before the slave was recaptured, he spoke of a man who could take your very soul if you looked at him. A few days later, the slave was found on the outskirts of the vampire city. His eyes and tongue had been cut out. His throat had been ripped from his neck, almost severing the head and an inverted cross had been carved on his chest.

The thought of the prophecy of Death coming true, chilled my bones. Is there a name for this taker of souls?

If I remember rightly, they called him Lucious, or something like that.

I sank back in my chair, memories of a conversation long ago, haunted my mind. Then it’s true; the son of Lucifer and Lilith walks the earth.

Hang on! said Sturges. That’s a bigger load of balls that Raven’s come out with. Anyone can come up with a load of crap like that.

For your information, Sturges, the woman told me that the slave was her eldest son! Why should she lie? Neither she nor anyone with her knew who I was. And if they did, so what? I’m no bloody Superwoman.

I rose from my chair and quickly finished packing my bag before arming myself as best I could, making sure that the dagger of Dracula was firmly in its sheath. We each of us carried two scimitars. The precise curved blade of the sword made them the perfect weapon for slicing the head off a vampire, or anything else that proved to be a threat.

Without saying a word, I carried my bag, with some food, a leather of water, crossbow, bolts and fresh clothes, outside to where Sarah and Raphael had tethered the horses. As per my instructions, there were seven; two of which carried multiple saddlebags of bolts for the crossbows, a little extra food and spare clothing; the latter having been taken from our crude washing area.

Have the bolts been blessed? I asked, knowing that Sarah would never make bolts without having them blessed by another firm believer in God.

Need you ask?

I smiled then kissed her cheek. You are a breath of fresh air amongst these old warriors. I hope we have enough.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. I don’t know, but I gave up the count after reaching six hundred and sixteen!

"Six one six, such a funny girl. Hmm, I suppose I shouldn’t call someone who is