Posted 3/26 on the Brimstone message board
on WBBoards (Warner Brothers site)
Special thanks to FourTeller and the other posters there
for filling in the blanks.
Our discussion on actors (“movies” thread) prompted me to come up with this little fanfic. Picture Jack Nicholson as War, Richard O’Brien (Dark City, Rocky Horror) as Pestilence, Malcolm McDowell as Famine, and Christopher Walken as Death. *Notice, too, that tobacco is the sacred herb of the war god Mars.
“It’s Y2K! Wake up, wake up! The time is now!” Zeke opened his eyes to the site of ‘his favorite’ Devil shaking the bed. Smart devil, he thought. If he had shaken my shoulder I’d have clocked him. “I’ve got some friends for you to meet.”
“Do I have to?”
“Sooner or later. Time is short, I highly recommend sooner.” Zeke blinked, confused. “It’s Y2K, Zeke. End of the world. Apocalypse, prelude to the Second Coming. Curtain comes down on the world as we knew it. And you need to meet the people who are in charge of my end of the operation.”
Zeke grumbled and got out of bed, still in street clothes, and let the Devil lead him to the street. If he hadn’t gotten fully awake on the way there, what he saw woke him up when he arrived.
Standing in the otherwise deserted L.A. street were four of the largest horses Zeke had ever seen in his life. One was red, one white, one black, and one skeletal, and each had a man riding it. He didn’t need the priest to explain to him what he was looking at—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The bald horseman spoke. “Hmm, should I use bubonic? Maybe Ebola, that would be quick. AIDS spread nicely but it would be far too slow for this occasion. How long did you say we had?”
The one on the red horse took his cigar* in hand to answer. “I don’t think we’re on a time limit, necessarily. I just figured I’d do the job in whatever time it took.”
“I’m hungry,” declared the white haired horseman on his white horse. “I could eat everything in the whole world myself!”
There was a moment’s pause and Zeke moved as if to speak, but the Devil motioned him to stop. The horseman on the skeletal horse, barely more than bones himself, was contemplating what he would say. “I will grow wings,” he said, and with a gesture of infinite grace he did. “They should have a moment of beauty before they die.” He spread his newborn wings and floated high above his horse.
“I think it’s because your sorry horse can’t keep up with the rest of us.” The three horsemen snickered as Death fought the urge to slap Famine. War joined in the play and Pestilence, bored, spurred his horse. Zeke reached for his gun to shoot the black horse but found it wasn’t in his holster. He’d forgotten to pack it somehow.
Laughing, Famine raced after Pestilence. Zeke tried to run but realized he couldn’t outpace a large horse. In desperation he mounted Death’s horse and gave it a solid kick in its skeletal ribs. War’s horse left, but instead of running Death’s horse reached around and bit Zeke’s leg off at mid-calf. He was hobbled, at the mercy of this monster.
The Devil looked up at the space above Zeke. There Death hovered, peaceful as…death. He reached his hand down as if in blessing. “Go.”
The skeletal horse rode off, carrying Zeke helplessly to watch as its master hovered above, taking out first those he most loved: children, cops, Kane, Max, Father Horn, Rosalyn.
Zeke started awake, heart pounding, clothes soaked in sweat. The Devil sat at the foot of the bed, smiling warmly. “What?”
“If you insist on sleeping, Zeke, I will insist you dream.“ He smiled again, patronizing, and when Zeke rubbed his eyes he disappeared. Good, he thought, the fewer daily rituals Zeke observed, the further removed from his humanity, and the better he would accept his return to Hell.
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