Simon Spurrier - The Culled

And as the exodus convoy had slipped away from the overrun UN headquarters – lost, futureless, despairing – that crumpled file from all those years ago had been like a bolt from the heavens. A sign. In that perfect instant he'd known, clearly and immediately, where to take his Clergy to find safety and security.

It was perfect. An island with its own tiny airstrip. Easily defendable. Perfectly secure quarters for the luminaries of the sect. Plentiful housing for the soldiery and devotees. Vast holding-rooms below ground where anything could be conducted in secret and silence. Airports a mere spit away in Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit…

And the studio. It couldn't be any better.

Halfway down the main hallway of the fifth sub-level a priest stood waiting, dressed strangely. He wore not robes but overalls – oil-stained and heavy with tool pockets – but in deference to his spiritual allegiance they were pale grey with a scarlet circle on the breast, and the same pattern tattooed over his left eye.

Marcus waved towards him with an introductory nod. "Chief Engineer Maclusky, your holiness."

"Mm. Yes? Yes?"

The man dipped in a bow that combined deference, religious awe and sphincter-tearing-terror. John-Paul resisted a smirk.

"Studio's up and running, your holiness. Cameras work fine. Shocking, frankly, but then again they built this shit to last and I guess we can't be surpr…" The man stopped. His eyes snapped wide as his brain caught up with his rambling and noticed what it'd just said. "Uh… E-excuse my French, your holiness, i-it's n…"

"Please go on, child."

"W-well, uh."

"The cameras"

"Yeah, yeah, well… they ain't maybe as advanced as we're used to, but…"

"That doesn't matter. We can find new ones, eventually. As long as we can broadcast."

"Yeah, yeah." Another mad little bow. "The dish needs some tuning – but no problem. Up and running whenever you want it."

"Good. Very good. One hour."

The man's eyes bugged out again. 'Whenever you want it' clearly hadn't included 'right now.'

"One h…! B-but…"

"That's a problem?"

"B-but… uh, no. No, your holiness, no. It's just… I assumed you'd want to wait for Sunday. H-how will people know we're going to be broadcasting?"

John-Paul treated the sweating man to a look that contrived to inform him his assumptions weren't worth a scrotumful of diseased spunk, then broke into a friendly little smile.

He liked to keep people off-balance.

"Aha." He said. "The people aren't my first concern, my child. The Cells need to know we've moved. London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing… All those little mini-churches, happily ferrying the Divine Initiates to LaGuardia. What will they do, I wonder, when they get there?"

The terrified man shook his head. He dripped.

"No, no. What we need is a message of reassurance. Just to… let them know where we are. Where to re-route. A permanent broadcast. A loop. You can manage that, I trust?"

"W-well, yes, I should think that would b…"

"Good. One hour, then. I believe I will be feeling rather stronger, by then."

The wheelchair squeaked on, and left the engineer behind. John-Paul hummed to himself.

At the end of another corridor, round a pair of sharp right angles, was one final doorway. It was marked: DETENTION.

His smile dipped.

Here.

Here was where it all began.

It made sense, he supposed. A nuclear bunker, containing dozens of important personalities and their families, all crushed together for an extended period. It was inevitable, perhaps, that tempers would fray. Behaviour would slip. A wise precaution, then, including somewhere to let troublemakers cool-down. To keep them out of harm's way.

Another aide opened the door, infuriatingly casual, and John-Paul felt cold prickles shivering across his entire body. Didn't they know? Didn't they understand?

Here.

It began here.

Five years ago, this was where it happened.

The research. The virus getting inside. The first symptoms. The discovery of the trend – the O-negatives unaffected, the antigens revealing their secrets – and the broadcast to the UN to let them know. Then the luckiest ones shutting themselves away, fearing the anger of the dying. The place was supposed to be airtight. How did the disease get in? Who was to blame?

For just a little while, the place became… hell.

There were gaps in what he remembered. Something a little like insanity had gripped the bunker, for a time. But here in this room he'd let God touch his blood, and let his memories swallow themselves up, and let purity cleanse his bitter soul; and then there was nothing… nothing at all… until he staggered out of the haze and into New York, to claim his destiny.

It was a curious sensation; returning.

They wheeled him into the dull little chamber, stepped formally aside and let him see.

The prisoners.

He smiled. He smiled with a vicious little glimmer of glee at seeing these fuckheads, these arch-devils, stripped of their clothes and humiliated, beaten and captured. He stared with an imperious smirk at their exposed genitals and the bruises criss-crossing their bodies. He sneered and smiled and tittered quietly. He was smug and arrogant and self-righteous, and the best thing was: he didn't care.

"Leave us." He told the aides. "Wait outside. Someone find Cardinal Cy. He'll want to watch, I think."

They were smart enough not to argue, leaving in a silent gaggle of grey and white. John-Paul called out to Marcus as he reached the threshold.

"Y-yes your holiness?"

"Prepare the equipment, Marcus. Hurry back."

"The… the cameras?"

"No, Marcus. The other equipment."

"Oh… oh, y-yes. Of course." The young man swallowed, blinking. "Where would you like to… uh…"

"Here, Marcus. Right here. I shall… commune… with the Lord before we broadcast. I will perform the miracle, I think. People must see that all is as it should be."

"I understand, your holiness."

"See to it."

"Y-yes, uh…" he lingered, shifting his weight awkwardly.

"What is it?"

"The… the communion. Would you like me to fetch an… an initiate?"

John-Paul stared at him for a moment or two, then broke into a wide smile.

"No." He said. "No, Marcus. My friends here are all I require."

And he smiled up at the prisoners, and Marcus scraped and kowtowed his way through the door. It swung shut with a heavy clang behind him.

And then there were three.

His Holiness the Abbot John-Paul Rohare Baptiste turned to face the pair of bruised fucks who'd caused him so much annoyance, and said:

"Blessed are the children."

"You what?" I grunted.

He smiled.

My arse, for the record, continued to hurt.

The detention room was a boring cube with a grille-fronted cell set into each of the three walls unoccupied by the door. Rather than sling me and Nate into the cells themselves – oh no, that would've allowed us all sorts of unfair luxuries like being able to bloody sit down – Cy and his goons had cuffed us with our hands behind our backs to the front of the grilles themselves, then taken great pleasure in stripping off our clothes and covering us from head to toe in foul smelling antiseptic powder. The upshot was that we were standing there buck-naked, stinking like necrotic kippers, unable to either turn, sit or slouch without dislocating our shoulders, and now faced with an unlikely audience with a chair bound old git with a gargantuan hat.

My top ten surreal moments had a brand new highest entry.

"The children." He repeated, watery little eyes glimmering. "Blessed, blessed, blessed. Mm. Yes."

He twitched and giggled.

I exchanged a silent look with Nate. Whatever unspoken enmities might exist between us, this overrode them all. I looked back at the mummified vision and chose my words with care.