The New Apocalypse
The Cast
Supernatural Beings:
God (God)
The Devil (Fallen angel and the Adversary)
Aleister Crowley (Angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards)

Apocalyptic Horsepersons:
Death (Death)
Famine (Famine)
War (War)
Pestilence (Pestilence)

Humans:
Old Bill (Barman)
Dejah Vue (Antichrist)
Mr Vue (Person who thought he was Father of the Antichrist)
Mrs Vue (Person who thought she was Mother of the Antichrist)
Lucy (Friend of the Antichrist)

Plus full cast of Demons, imps and people.

It was way past closing time, but Old Bill the barman couldn't seem to be able to do anything other than serve those strange men who had just entered the bar. He almost suspected them of some form of trickery, but, however, he couldn't even work out what they looked like. It was almost as if he had some kind of blind spot right on the table where they were sitting. The tall, thin one stood up and walked, or maybe stalked up to the bar and ordered another round of that thick, black syrupy drink which had mysteriously appeared under the bar when he had asked for it earlier. The strange man looked round at his table, shook his head and asked for another five packets of peanuts, which, he explained, were for Famine, who was always complaining how hungry he was. Old Bill reached behind him and pulled another packet of peanuts of the cardboard holder, which he could have sworn wasn't there this morning. "That'll be...", doing a fast calculation, "nine pounds and seventy pence, please.", said Bill, wondering what he was going to be paid with this time. He'd already been given several old, corroded coins of dubious currency which he had never seen before in his rather long (hence the name) life. But this time, he was given a crisp, new tenner. He gave the man a dubious look, (still unable to distinguish any characteristics whatsoever) and held the note up to the light. Sure enough, there was the Queen's head and the foil line, and he rang up the sale and gave the still indistinctive man his thirty pence change.
As Death sat back down with the drinks, Famine looked up and stared hungrily at the packets of peanuts he had brought back. "Right then," said Death, "thats another one-eighty you all owe me for the drinks, and if Pestilence doesn't give me the money he borrowed for last nights drinks back soon, I'm going to ...", "Oh, shut up Death," said Famine, "Just hand over the peanuts and save your petty squabbles until after the meeting.". "Yes, the meeting." roared War, "We have to do something about the way things are going on. People are forgetting us, and when the next Apocalypse comes round, they won't know what to do!". "Quite," said Pestilence as he sipped his drink, "We've tried our best with T.V. and video games, but the message doesn't seem to be powerful enough. One day they won't even remember our names, for heavens sake!". They paused thoughtfully for a while, and sipped occasionally from their drinks. Occasionally was all they could manage, as it was so thick, they could probably eat it more easily). "Oh yeah," said War suddenly, "The Devils been up to his old tricks again. I meant to tell you earlier but I forgot with all this talk about image. He's gone and made a mirror, right..."

The Devil was in high good humour, because he had created a mirror which made everything good and useful reflect in it and shrink to almost nothing, and everything bad and ugly stand out more clearly than ever. He hadn't yet decided what to do with it and at present it was sitting in front of him, grinning wickedly. The little Imps who went to the Devils school had put in an offer to take the mirror and run around with until there was nothing and nowhere left undistorted. The problem with this was that he couldn't stand those pesky little brats, and wouldn't trust them as far as he could throw them. And the mirror was really starting to irritate him, grinning all the time. The only option he had so far come up with came from his divining pool, which showed him the goings on of the real world, which was certainly getting up to a lot of bother without the aid of the Demons whose job it was to cause all sorts of havoc in the world of the living. The idea he had found was that if he got one his higher Demons (who had more intelligence than the average shoe-box, which was more than you could say about the rest of the inhabitants of Pandemonium) to invade one of the places where they make mirrors, and to convert them all to work like his magic mirror. This would create all sorts of chaos on a normal world, but not this place, because they were all doing such a good job of being Evil themselves, they didn't really need any help.

Meanwhile, in the land of Heaven, God (who is omnipresent and everpresent) had just woken up from his afternoon kip, and was just about to start delegating all his responsibilities so he could get back to sleep, when the klaxon sounded, which signified that the Good/Evil ratio had become unbalanced. "What's He gotten up to now, the dozy idiot," thought God, "That's twice this week He's done something more Evil than the Good I'm doing". God got up (in a metaphysical sort of way) and called Him up on the mobile. "Yeah, so what's happening" said the Devil, in perfect clarity, considering the fact He was using one of those extremely small japanese things, (but if there's one good thing about being a Deity, machines always worked perfectly, even ones designed to go wrong almost instantly, as in the phone example) "It's Me." said God, "I want to know what you're up to, you foul fiend of Darkness!" "Oh, It's you," replied the Devil "I haven't tipped the scales again, have I?" "Dead right you have, they're tipped right over to Evil, even after my campaign to give equal rights to animals, even the little slimy ones!". "Okay, okay. I'll make sure I don't do anything too nasty." said the Devil, managing to keep a straight face even though He felt like laughing in God's face.

The next day, God had gotten up early to keep an eye on the Devil, because he was a lowdown, sneaky cheat, as was his nature, and especially because He had promised he wouldn't do anything. Then God realised that it wasn't his alarm clock, but the klaxon again. He floated quickly over to the dials (He was too tired to run), and the needle was pointing so far into the black end of the scale it had melted under the pressure and was now a blob of metal in the bottom, going 'pink, pink' as it cooled down. God fainted, then after waking back up instantly (He is meant to be omnipresent after all) He decided to have a go at the Devil face to face, because over the phone you couldn't tell when he was lying. God just knew what He was doing now, He was probably sitting in his Throne of Evil and gloating in a kind of Evil gloating way. God knew He was going to have to do something. This wasn't just any mistake. This was the mistake.

"Well that's a turn up for the books isn't it." said Famine, while opening his umpteenth packet of peanuts, "You sit here, thinking Its never going to happen, and then all of a millennium, it only goes and happens!". "We'd better get a move on then. You know what that lots like." War said, pointing skywards, "Before you know it there's going to be all floods, fires and antichrists.".

The Devil just sat there (note: in his Throne of Evil), and gloated (note: in an evil, gloating kind of way), and waited for God. It had only been a couple of minutes since he set the alarms off, and shouldn't be long till He arrived. Just after thinking this, there was a puff of smoke and God suddenly appeared in the middle of the wall. He muttered something about never getting the hang of dematerialisation, then remembered why He was here. God stepped out of the wall, straightened himself out then, composing himself while trying to look dignified, He turned towards the Devil. Who offered a seat opposite his own throne. God examined the seat. It was about five foot tall, with a shelf for putting baby food on. He declined the offer and said He'd rather stand, if that was OK. Then He asked what all this Evil business was and said that it was going a bit over the top. The Devil replied by saying that it was his job, and if God couldn't stand the heat, He should get out of Hell. God, being rather angry about this, said He was going to the highest authority about this, because it wasn't time, and the world wasn't ready for the Apocalypse. To which the Devil replied, It had better be, because otherwise it was going to be in for a shock when it finds out. God just stamped out and then vanished in another puff of smoke (actually it was a cab, but smoke sounds better).

For once War had accurately plotted the future. There were indeed floods, fires and antichrists, all of godly proportions. The fire was in fact owned up for by the gas board, the IRA, various other terrorist groups and then Nuclear Electric, but in fact only the insurance companies got it right and called it an Act of God, which meant they didn't have to pay anything. There were also strange reports of four horsemen riding around London which haven't been confirmed, but there was a policemen who caught somebody riding a horse under the influence of heavy drink and even heavier armour and weapons, but curiously couldn't remember what he looked like afterwards, and was unable to file a report about him. This would have been alright, and the world could have gotten over this slight temporal upset, if it hadn't been for the Antichrist.

God knew He had to do something, and quickly, but the problem was that for the first time in His life, He didn't have the foggiest. His mirror, which was known for its stupidity, had an idea. He told God about his idea, who told him to shut up and let Him think. After several minutes, the mirror finally impressed on God that he wanted to express his feelings by having an idea, but that God was oppressing him. God replied by saying he was a mirror, for Heavens sake! Mirrors don't have feelings! But then let the mirror tell Him his idea. Gods next thoughts were:
"Hmmm."
"Indeed."
"Could it be?"
"Law of averages."
"Right. Had to work out eventually."
He then told the mirror that was actually a good idea, after all, and that He was going to do it, by Jove!

Shortly after starting junior school, Dejah had met Lucy. Lucy was the kind of girl who couldn't make friends easily. In fact she couldn't make anything easily, full stop. When she had to do a clay pot for art, she ended up making a clay pigeon (not the flying kind). In contrast, Dejah, when making a pot, usually ended up with a vase. She never actually seemed to do anything much, it's just that one minute she would have a lump of clay, the next she had a perfect vase.

"Your daughter is the Antichrist, Mr Vue."
Aleister repeated himself, because the man was looking at him like a madman looks at, well, anything. "Dejah Vue, your daughter, is the Antichrist, Mr Vue.", "I heard you the first time, and if you don't get out of my house, I'm going to call the police.". Mr Vue's phone spontaneously combusted in his hand. "I don't think we need to do anything silly like that, Mr Vue. All I've got to do is deliver this package for her, that message for you, and then get out of here." He put the package on the table, and disappeared.

Dejah was feeling a bit queasy today, and couldn't make up her mind about what to do. The summer holidays had just started, the sun was doing its job of converting hydrogen molecules into helium molecules and in the process pouring light into Dejah's room. You could tell something about Dejah by the way she had a pentacle carved into her bedroom floor. Nobody knew about this except Dejah though, who didn't really know why she had put it there. She still felt a bit wobbly and got out of bed to see if she could find something to steady the rollercoaster ride her stomach seemed to be taking around her insides. She threw on some clothes and... She stopped. She had just glanced in her mirror and seen a rather strange shape there. This could be a good place to put some of the details about Dejah. She had kicked and screamed her way into this world just over 12 years ago, and had now reached the stage where she wanted to be everything her parents weren't, and to not do anything her parents wanted. The problem with this is that by doing everything they can to not be like their parents, they eventually do everything their parents did. This is a stage most girls of Dejah's age reach, and so far nothing has been done about it. She had gone through life like a chainsaw through a tree, with the result that people avoided her like the plague. She did well in school, and had an above average grade in most lessons, even though she never seemed to take any notice of her teachers. Her best friend, even her only friend, was Lucy, who watched Star Trek and collected Doctor Who books. Back to the story. While Dejah was debating whether or not to run, the shape was becoming more solid and familiar by the second. Dejah turned round to face the person, and although she was sure she had never met him, Dejah knew him.

There was a meeting. Not your usual kind of several old men and a token women who makes the tea type of meeting, but the kind of meeting which you get in dodgy story lines like this. In fact, only in dodgy story lines like this. It consisted of five men, who all had a look of apprehension on their faces. This possibly was due to the large amounts of liquor they had been drinking, but they looked as sober as the time they had walked into the pub. It might have something to do with the strange newsflashes coming over the radio at a rate of about one every ten minutes. Who knew? Certainly not Old Bill, who only had to refill their glasses from time to time, and make sure there was a steady supply of peanuts to the rather gaunt gentleman sitting in the shadows. "Maybe it would be best to leave them to themselves," Old Bill thought to himself. "They look like they're waiting for the Apocalypse." He muttered, shaking his head.

Approximately thirty-two hours and 18 minutes later: "Better get a move on then. Only ten minutes left."
Unfortunately, my hard disk has crashed, and trashed the rest of this file. I am currently working on finishing the story, so watch this space to see the conclusion. It's only about another page.

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Or, go to my other story.