Last Days

by Adam L.G. Nevill

So why would a woman who could effectively command celibacy from her followers conduct these strange mating rituals that were almost certainly going to produce children?’

The human shadow with the dog feet?

He stood back. It would have been about five feet tall, were it not crouching to shield an indistinct face he was glad he could not see in the same level of detail that shaped the bony legs and thin fingers, the latter raised as if to protect its eyes from something hateful or painful.

And here was a rib cage and a concave stomach, the colour of a tea stain between the darker streaks that represented bones and limbs. He took more photos. Zoomed in on the appalling mouth and its long teeth. Horse teeth with receding gums.

Fused into the stone like a fossil. He took his hand away.

And into his mind grew an image, so clear, so crisp, of a flock of lifeless birds, their dusty wings at rest on dry bodies, before a lake of fetid water, greened with flotsam. Upon the shore an indistinct figure wrapped in tatty cloth raised its face to see him.

But the sudden silence left an image in his mind, of a small thin figure stood at the foot of the staircase, that looked up and waited for him to come down.

hands; the horizon a thin line of fire; the distant bray of a goat they never saw.

Leaden weights suspended from twine seemed to pull his spirits and his jaw down. This is how the world was when you knew it was terminal. Dan was gone. Dead.

‘They were taken into care.’ ‘Yes. Quite right. Which is why it took a great deal of my time and my resources to find them. This spring.’ ‘You found them? I googled to see if I could—

Kyle is one. I'm calling it now

‘Afraid it’s a bit more serious than that, my dear Kyle. Chet Regal is Sister Katherine.’ The building seemed to move on its axis.

WHAT?!

Max leaned upon his cane in a revived physical discomfort that Kyle dearly wanted to increase.

‘Maybe Max was right. We revere the narcissist. Because maybe the biggest stars are those who shed oceans of blood for their immortality. The freaks that consider themselves immortal. Who thought they were Gods. Tyrants for sure. But never Gods.’