Children of God

Prologue: The Rottweiler

1. The earth fell down upon the makeshift grave

2. The stones of the beach were probably only ever found on the beach. Beneath the calm waters there was more than likely a plethora of clingy sand, beneath which lay creatures whose faces always saw the stomachs of those above them. Atop the blue blanket that bobbed ever so slightly were boats, all the same blinding white, although some were now more of a fading blinding white. Above these sentinels of the sea were loud, irritating gulls that swooped around the sky. Finally, above the stones, were four feet. Two belonged to one man, the other two to a woman.

The woman, with the black duffel bag swung over her shoulder and her red hair hanging limply, could hear his footsteps and the rolling stones that fell down the beach. She turned her gaze slightly behind her, and saw the man approach.

“You told me you’d be here earlier.” she sighed. He remained silent. She continued talking.

 “It’s a very risky thing, you know. I mean, you came out here, alone, mysterious, without any shoes. I mean, look at you, all you have are pants and a jacket. I doubt that’s even real leather! And yet you want to buy these off of me? On the verge of a ban that would get you arrested, maybe even tried for murder just for touching them?”

His response was a simple “I didn’t know about any ban”, short and gruff.

“You obviously don’t read. Shame, you won’t...doesn’t matter. I’ve got the arms, I hope you’ve got the cash. Or whatever it is you said you were going to pay with.”

“Money’s here.”

He removed a wad of cash from his pocket.

“Look who’s loaded. I suppose you’re full of a lot of four-letter words, cash being the commonest one. What you’ve got  in this bag is your standard kit: a shotgun, handgun, rifle, machine gun. All you need for???”

“I’m making a difference. I hope you enjoy it.”

3.  He walked away.

His ideal world, the world wherein no joy remained, had been a ghost of his memory since his entrance into life. The term that he had seen, once before in a book mistakenly left open, the “post-apocalypse”. That had been his heart since then. Nothing poured through his veins but terror.

He guessed he could call it a dream. Once, and this was the future he was referring to, the media knew his name, he knew they would call it a “warped dream”, or a delusion or something similar. His english teacher had always groaned about how little definition was given to the two different versions of the word “dream”. Then again, his english teacher had been a dedicated man with a less than dedicated husband, who had then descended into classes of just watching clips from a film not even based on the novel they were studying.

His ride was a battered car with the old looking wheels. It was red, but covered with grey-slightly purple dirt that he’d picked up by driving miles through open country just to get here. There would now be an equally long and utterly boring drive back home, or what others would call a home. It was more of a domestic shack, appearing nice and warm from the outside.

4.  He stepped inside his house, and went right upstairs. There were two staircases, but only one actually led to anywhere. The other, located at the back, went up and into a wall. It had been a prank the contractors who had built the place had played, and not one the previous tenant had been very happy about.

He had an old computer upstairs. An underused heap of a thing he’d taken from the dump, that still worked (more or less). The Internet was a beautiful thing that he considered to be a devil, a thing where  evil could be easily found.