The Book of Josiah - Chapter 23b

Part a is here.

And then he knew what he had to do. He did not know how but he had no doubts, no doubts at all...

    If he had had any doubts, he should never have begun. Now there was no choice, no choice at all. Lovecraft sank to the floor, a gaping hole in his chest. Blood splattered across the corridor, spraying all over Duke’s clean clothes and Thee’s white glove. And everything seemed to happen so slowly.
    Was he doing the right thing? He knew he was right, and Amber agreed but now he had to deal with it. There was no choice - he would not let Amber die.
    A ghastly smile on his face, Lovecraft crashed to the ground. And already Duke was turning, his mammoth body turning so slowly. The gun in his hands would never fire. He could not think, he had to shoot, if not for himself then for Amber.
    He aimed the gun, closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. What else could he do? He had been left with no options, no options at all.
    Duke’s right hand dropped the gun. His left hand moved up to his chest instinctively as Josiah’s bullet passed clean through it, and exploded out the other side in a fountain of vivid red. Duke’s lifeblood boiled away. He had no last words but his face was a picture of stunned shock.
    A flash and something hot burned across Josiah’s back. Another flash.
    He looked up at saw Theano fall to the floor, her brains scattered against the walls. Amber held a gun in her shaking hands.
    “She…” Amber forced herself to swallow. “She was going to shoot you.”
    “We’re safe. You can drop the gun.”
    “We killed them,” she gasped, her eyes were wide open, staring into the middle distance, her knuckles were white from clenching the grip.
    “We did what we had to do,” he answered, as gently as he could. They had not had any other choice. If only they had listened to reason.
    Amber nodded somewhat doubtfully, and managed to release her hold on the gun. It clattered to the floor.
    Josiah put his hand to his back. It came back red with blood. Theano’s bullet must have literally scraped across his skin.
    “Come on,” Josiah said, “we have to get out of here.”
    She nodded again, gulped down a breath of air and together they headed down the corridor towards the skyway.
    It was unbelievable, really. How had he managed to do those things? Not long ago he hadn’t even been able to fire a gun. How was he able to keep walking, as blood trickled down his back? The human mind was truly a powerful thing. Such power…
    “Lean on me,” Josiah said, seeing that Amber was still limping.
    She put an arm round his shoulders and they hobbled down the corridor, the skyway just ahead of them, past the pools of blood on the concrete floor.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 23a

The Five of Cups reversed, gold on black.
    He is in a car with her, and they are driving down the road. The top is down, the wind is in her hair - God, she looks beautiful today, eyes like black on gold. And they are laughing so hard, though he can’t say why. They laugh and laugh, as though this could never end. And then he looks at his hand, and sees a trickle of blood - why does it not hurt? He stops laughing, and so does she. They stare at the trickle of blood, confused, as it traces a red path down his arm. And then the car is out of control, and they go off the bridge. For a moment they are suspended in empty space but then they fall. And somewhere distant, a girl is crying.
    The Six of Wands reversed, silver on black.
    On an ocean, rocking back and forth with the gentle waves. It is night, and the moon is full, silver on black. It is so peaceful here, with the gentle rocking of the sea. But the sky grows darker, and one of the crew is not who he seems, he is an outsider, a traitor, but which one? Perhaps they should draw lots. But the lots are not fair and he draws the short straw - no! I am not the traitor! - but no one will listen to his cries, and they prepare to throw him from the boat before all is lost. “Pray to your God,” they say, “perhaps he will hear and save your life”. But he does not believe in God and so all hope is lost. For a moment he is suspended in empty space but then he falls forever.
    The Fool.
    How should this dream go? I shall toss a coin to decide, I cannot control a dream. Heads, we shall all go home and live beautiful lives, and the dream shall end happily ever after. Tails, we shall never go home, and the dream shall end in fear and pain. He tosses the coin, watches it spin, round and round. For a moment, it hangs there, forever revolving, but then it falls. He reaches out a bloodstained hand and catches it. Tails. Best of three, he thinks, and tosses the coin again and again - and every time it comes up tails.

    The World reversed. Failure.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 18

    It wasn’t his fault. Not really. He was afraid of his dreams and so he fought the darkness. What had happened to his beautiful dreams? Once he had dreamt of other worlds and other times, when a man could be a hero, where he was free to live out his fantasies. But he had squandered his infinite dreams and now was left with only two.
    In one, he watched a cup of tea fall to the floor, so elegant, so graceful, and shatter into a thousand pieces like a drop of rain as it hits the ground; and an inhuman screech filled his ears as brakes burned, tires slid and a car, all too close, collided with a brick wall. It was inevitable and he was bound to watch, over and over again.
    But relatively speaking that was the good dream. In the other, he woke up in his bed to find Ammi lying beside him, worn by the passing of years but as beautiful as ever. And he would wake her up and tell her about the strange dream he had had, and how he had imagined the crash, and her funeral, and his sorrow, and she laughed and said “what a funny dream” and they both laughed together until Dinah came to find out what was going on; and she was so beautiful it ached his heart, and he told her about his strange dream, and how she had died and he had gone to her funeral and been unable to say a word, and he laughed because she was so full of life - they all laughed.
    Joe felt himself falling asleep again and drove his nails harder into his leg - he had to stay awake. it wasn’t his fault that he kept falling asleep in this meeting. How could he go to sleep at night knowing what waited for him in the shadows?
    His head jerked backwards and he knew that he couldn’t help himself. In a few minutes he would be asleep, and there was nothing he could do about it. No, he wouldn’t accept that.
    Eli was still talking but it was just a senseless drone, like an itch at the base of Joe’s mind. He did not understand a word that was being said but couldn’t ignore it. He had to seem interested but to do that he had to stay awake. Rising from his seat in what he hoped was a surreptitious manner, Joe went over to the water machine and poured himself a large cup of water.
    ‘I need something stronger than water,’ Joe thought but then was immediately angry at himself for thinking it. He did not drink any more.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 16

 

Chapter 16 of the Book of Josiah is probably the one that has caused me the most difficulties over the years, and this week is no exception. This version has been censored to make it more suitable for all audiences - the original is rather more explicit and I decided not to post it on my blog. If you want to see it, to get the full story of the Book of Josiah, contact me privately. I may also put it up in a final ebook.

    “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
    “I’m sorry? I thought I was saving your life!”
    “What the hell were you doing?”
    “I saved your life - what are you talking about?”
    Amber shook her head in frustration, which just left Josiah even more confused and angry. He had risked his own life to help her reach safety and he had expected relief and maybe even some gratitude. She had just been shot in the leg - Josiah winced - but what was she so angry about?
    But what about Duke? He had been acting strangely as well - giving him the cold shoulder, if such a thing should be said of a man that had just taken a bullet in the shoulder. The pun amused him and his anger cooled. If only Amber would be more reasonable.
    “You really don’t know, do you?” Amber said, fiddling with her hands, then pushing back her hair; if she could have paced up and down the room she would have.
    Josiah kept his tone level and measured, determined to bring the conversation to a reasonable debate. “No, I don’t know. Could you tell me?”
    “Fine. Let me remind you, even if it was only a couple of hours ago,” she muttered something under her breath about short memories but Josiah decided to let the remark slide.
    “We were in the station,” she continued, speaking slowly, as one would when telling off an infant, too young to realise that what they have done is wrong, “they had shot at us, we had shot at them, and we were nearly in the clear. I was in trouble, you helped me get out. Don’t think I’m not grateful. The way out was ahead of us. There was no one in the way. Our path was clear. With me so far?”
    Josiah nodded, still no less confused - he knew what had happened next, that was when he had finally found the Plasma Inducer. He glanced down to the floor to check it was still there.
    “That’s when you decided, in your infinite wisdom, to go back into the middle of the shooting and pick up some dumb piece of metal! Duke was shot through the shoulder because of your stupidity. He could have died! Didn’t you think about what you were doing? Do you still not understand? I almost lost you.”

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 8 - JOS

    Nearly four days since the bombing, and Jos found himself glued to the News once more. They had found someone alive, buried under the remains of Canary Wharf in the London Docklands. After so long, it was something of a miracle. They had detected a faint heartbeat, somehow, and even now the emergency services were gathering to dig them out. An engineer was explaining how a falling girder could have formed a roof, a tiny pocket of air, saving the person’s life. While he spoke, the ruined skeleton of the tower, its steel structure, was bare and black - a stark silhouette against the dawn sky.
    Jos looked at the time. It was five to six in the morning. After that monstrous dream, he had been unable to go back to sleep, and he no longer felt like walking, or sitting in the bar. Snakeskin shoes flashed across his eyes when he least expected them, and Jonah’s words seemed engraved on his brain. Jos was too tired to read, even to think, so he watched the News, and hoped.
    It was difficult work, the engineer was saying, trying to remove the rubble without disrupting the equilibrium that kept the person alive. They couldn’t use heavy machinery and were relying on hand-tools to get the job done. He gave a demonstration, and the reporter nodded earnestly, as if she had never seen a shovel before.
    Suddenly, the projected image disappeared, and Jos was left staring at the wall, in near darkness. He sent a thought command to turn the lights up, but nothing happened. The clock was still working but seemed to have frozen at 5:56. What was going on? Jos reached out an arm for the controls to try to call technical support. He did not succeed. Instead, he found himself floating out of his bed. Artificial gravity had been lost, he thought, shocked and surprised. Jos had always hated weightlessness and he felt vaguely sick. If gravity had been lost, would life-support be next? How much air did they have? This was bad - really bad. He had done this trip countless times and nothing like this had ever happened before. Had they been attacked? He tried to move towards the door but ended up spinning uselessly half a metre above his bed. His breathing was fast, his pulse accelerated - he had to get out of here.
    And then he collapsed into the bed as gravity reasserted itself. He banged his head against the sideboard and was still nursing it when the lights came on to medium, as he had asked. What was going on?

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 7 - JOSIAH

Not sure what this is about? Here's my introduction.

Chapter 5 is the continuation of the story of Josiah begun in chapters 1, 2 and 5. But remember Jos and Joe, as all three stories impact each other.

Josiah woke with a start, shaking and trembling. What was going on? It was too dark to see anything. He looked around in panic, eyes wide, breathing quickly. He was drenched in an icy sweat, bed sheets clinging to his body. Then he realised that he was in his room and collapsed back into the bed, shivering with cold and the remains of terror. It had all been so real, Security was everywhere. Duke had been killed, and Amber… crushed beneath falling barrels. Amber was dead.
    Wasn’t she? No, it was just another stupid bad dream, Amber was fine.
    But they had gone to the market, followed the small man, hadn’t they? When did reality end and the dream begin? As he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, he wasn’t sure. He needed a drink. But first...
    “God of Steel, watch over my soul as it drifts from my body,” he began automatically. What are you doing? There is no God of Steel, no soul to leave my body. You aren’t a Priest and you don’t believe in Steel. Why are you still praying?
    After a few words he gave up. There was no comfort there.
    Josiah clambered from bed, switched on the light that swung just above his head, and poured himself a glass of water. His hands were shaking and he spilt half the glass on the floor. Why was he so clumsy? Fact and fiction continued to intertwine inside his head. The blood exploding from Duke’s body, the barrels falling for eternity. He had been too far away, there was nothing he could have done. Was Amber dead? He knew that he had dreamt it but had the dream reflected reality or was it all in his mind?
    A coffee would help straighten his thoughts. He pressed the button for coffee but nothing happened. A gurgling sound and a smell of burning drifted from the Provider. The steel fist emblazoned on the machine stared at him. He sneered at it and knocked the Provider to the floor. It was some sort of cosmic joke, and he had had enough.
    He turned to the wall and ripped down the fist that hung there. Its sharp edges cut his finger but that only made him angrier. He threw the damned thing with furious strength. Shards of grey plaster scattered as it hit the wall.
    Then the phone rang.
    He switched on the monitor, aware that he was not yet dressed and was still trembling.
    “Merlin!” cried Amber excitedly, “good morning.”
    Confusion and relief intermingled in Josiah’s mind as he struggled to think of an appropriate thing to say.
    “What time is it?” was all he could come up with.
    “It’s 5:56 am precisely,” Amber answered, “I thought you might want to come for a drive.”
    “Do you normally call people at six in the morning?”
    “Well, you’re up aren’t you?”
    Josiah had to smile, all anger evaporating. “I suppose I am,” he answered.
    “Then what’s the problem?” Amber rejoined, “I’m on level 28, see you when you’re dressed.”
    Before Josiah could say anything else, the screen went dark. Embarrassed, he had to laugh.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 5 - JOSIAH

Not sure what this is about? Here's my introduction.

Chapter 5 is the continuation of the story of Josiah begun in chapters 1 and 2. But you might meet some characters you recognise from Jos' storyline...

What is the Square?
    A geometrical object. Neat and precise, two-dimensional and utterly regular. Existing nowhere, if not in the mind.
    Josiah had come to realise that it was also a place, a group of people, an ideal. And more than that - for many souls who had lost their faith it was home.
    For Josiah however, it was an opportunity, a door opening before him. He could almost taste the success of his time machine, as he sipped on a black coffee and relaxed in a chair of real brown leather. The smell of cured animal skins was a real pleasure, as was the feeling of the chair beneath his fingers. Without a doubt, this was the most comfortable chair in the room - and there had been no shortage of choice.
    Josiah had to admit that the Square was both exactly what he had hoped for and more, but also very, very different. The lounge of the Elegant Head summed it up completely.
    The first thing you noticed upon entering the Elegant Head, as Josiah had noticed not a week earlier, was the sheer number of chairs - chairs of all varieties. There were sofas and armchairs, rocking-chairs and stools, fold-out chairs and inflatable chairs. Chairs made of wood and iron, of green plastic and animal fur, a chair made entirely out of human bones. The only thing there wasn’t, was a chair made of steel.
    And that was the second thing that Josiah had noticed. He had been so accustomed to seeing them, he felt their absence as something palpable - there were no fists of steel on the wall, no boxes for Church offerings. Even the Provider was free from iconography - the sheer blasphemy still thrilled him as he drank his unblessed coffee.
    After that, the details of the room came thick and fast, broke across his mind like waves across a boat, too much for your mind to quite take everything in.
    The sheer vastness of the chamber, open to the sky above, with the bright light of the sun shining down upon you like summer. But between the Square and the sky were many metres of concrete. This was a false sky, reading off the ambient emotion of the room and setting itself accordingly.
    Set into the regular walls, at irregular intervals, were small shaded alcoves, capable of being curtained and soundproofed off for private conferences and meetings. And other forms of experimentation. Sound could not escape but odours lingered in the red, velvet curtains.
    The cooling remnants of coffee, cups of tea and smashed liquor glasses dwelt on some of the tables scattered about the room, alongside well-worn books on higher mathematics, spectral physics and biochemistry. There were books everywhere. They seemed to grow organically from the walls and were spreading towards the rather plain Provider in a menacing fashion.
    And no matter the time of day or night, you would find the scientists. Some sat silently, reading huge volumes, sipping from whiskey glasses. Others smoked long brown sticks and paraded on the chairs, weeping softly. Josiah had even seen a grown woman dance into the room naked, screaming ‘Eureka’. No one batted an eyelid, and Josiah was trying to learn not to respond to anything he saw.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 4 - JOS

Chapter 4 continues the story of Jos, the first part of which was Chapter 3.

    Jos watched the chronometer slowly mark the passage of time. He had thought about sleeping but had given up. No matter how tired he was, he found sleep to be a coy mistress. He wanted to speak to Ammi, had wanted to ever since Jonah had been arrested - had that really happened? It all seemed so far away now, so unreal.
    At 7:30 am CET, the starship entered its daytime cycle, and the world onboard seemed to wake from its slumber. Though he had made this journey many times before, Jos still found the lack of objective time somewhat disturbing - day or night, the world beyond the window was as dark as ever. He was finding these little adjustments harder and harder to make. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and could no longer shrug off the space-lag as if the time difference was nothing but a blink of an eye.
    Ammi would probably be up by now but to be safe he waited another ten minutes. Was he afraid to call her? What should he say? It had all seemed so clear last night, so obvious what needed saying. Jos practised what he would say inside his head but was not satisfied with any formulation. At precisely 7:40 he gave up, resolved to just see what happened, and activated the computer. The display flickered into life, projecting the desktop directly into the air. Deftly, he manipulated the black keys before him, not even glancing down at the pad. This might have been a clumsy way of working but direct computer-mind interfacing was still in the embryonic stage. And anyway, the idea of such an interface, hacking a computer into your mind, was disgusting - he would use a keypad still.
    Selecting off-ship communications and the address of Ammi, he sat back and waited for the computer to find the connection. Soon enough, an image of his wife appeared on the display - she had obviously just washed her hair, which looked dark and heavy. Her hazel eyes were warm and she smiled as she saw him.
    “Jos! How nice to see you.” Ammi’s melodic voice filled the cabin. “I’m just going out the door. How’s the flight going?”
    “Fine, fine. As good as could be expected.”
    “That’s great. And you’ll be here in two days?”
    “A bit less - we should arrive tomorrow night.”
    “Great.”
    “How are you?” he asked, but it wasn’t what he wanted to say - the words stuck fast in his throat and sat there smoldering.
    “Fine. Nothing remarkable going on here. The usual bunch of patients - viruses, flu, ear infections - nothing in particular going on.”
    An uncomfortable silence fell between them.
    “Well, I must be off,” Ammi said, “busy day at the surgery.”
    “Yeah. See you soon, have a good day.”
    “You too. Bye.”
    “Bye.”
    Ammi’s image blinked out. Jos shut down the computer.
    Something inside him was missing. He felt a hole and did not know what to do about it. He should have told her how much he loved her, how much he cared for her - at least he should have told her about Jonah. But no. He said nothing. He always said nothing. Why could he not talk to her? There hadn't used to be silences in their conversations, had there? There was always tomorrow. Maybe when he saw her it would be easier.
    Jos felt a headache looming at the back of his skull - too many sleepless nights. What he really needed was a good breakfast, put everything else out of his mind.
    The walk to the restaurant was not long but Jos found himself thinking about last night, when he had taken a similar walk. Jonah loomed large inside his head. The whole encounter had been so strange. Why had he poured his heart out to someone he barely knew? And some of the things he had said. Nonsense yet seemingly true. He could not explain it.
    Considering that it was still relatively early, the restaurant was quite busy. Jos joined the back of the brisk queue, trying to decide what would be the best cure for a looming headache.
    “I wouldn’t have the eggs if I were you,” came a low, murmuring voice from next to his ear.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 2 - JOSIAH

 One moment he was scurrying along the city bottom, the next he was lying face down on the concrete. A taste of copper told him that his lip had been cut in the fall. A sharp kick in his left side knocked the rest of the air out of him.
    Dazed, Josiah found himself being lifted off the ground. A huge, leathery hand held him firmly  by the scruff of his neck. He wasn’t going anywhere.
    “Give us your money, and we might not have to hurt you,” growled the man who held him. He was very tall -  well over two metres - with mismatched eyes, a chin covered in bristles and a stud through his lower lip. His nose was reddened by too much drink, his teeth burnt from too much smoke.
    “I don’t have any money,” Josiah protested, struggling vainly.
    “We think you is a liar but it’s more fun this way. We think we start with an ear or two. You ain’t using them, right?”
    He chuckled to himself - empty and cold - and leered at Josiah, revealing blackened gums. A knife flashed in his hand.
    And then he crumpled to the floor, part of his torso obliterated. Blood spray hit the walls - a sombre red against the psychedelic spray paint.
    Josiah put his gun away and hurried off down the tunnel.  He glanced from side to side. There was no one else around. That made his life a lot easier. He wanted to get off these streets as fast as possible and into the Lock. He quickened his step; kept his eyes fixed on the ground.
    Then it hit him hard, like a blow to the chest. He had killed a man. Shot him with the gun he held in his hands. He had never used it before today. There had been no time to think, no choice. Him or me. Josiah’s guts twisted themselves into painful knots, the smell of blood still clung to his nostrils like a stain, the dying man’s eyes, suddenly and paradoxically alive with shock, filled his mind. I had no choice, he thought furiously, fighting down the urge to panic. I have to focus on my objectives. Where am I going?

The Book of Josiah - An Introduction

In the distant future, the Steel God has replaced the God of the Bible, and Science is the only religion. A non-believing priest, Josiah works desperately to complete his time machine, as Elisha and the Inner Circle strive to frustrate his new ideas. Josiah must flee to the Deep, the squalid streets of Camden Town and Kings Cross, escape the hordes of Piranhas and followers of the Steel God, to finish his life's work.

Jos is visiting his wife, taking a break from working on his time machine to fly to Luna City, when he meets the mysterious Jonah, a mad prophet and convicted murderer. But when terrorist strike London, what will Jos and Jonah be prepared to do to save the ship?

Jo is an old man, life wasted on the futile project of building a time machine, desperate to see his wife and daughter once more. When they died in a car accident, his whole life came to a halt and now lies covered in a thick layer of dust. But this peace is shattered when a former student of Jo's, Eli, invites him to join a team. Their project? To build a city on the moon.

Jo, Jos and Josiah - each one of them building a time machine, each one of them disturbed by haunting dreams. They can't possibly be the same person - can they?

The first chapter of 'the Book of Josiah' is online now.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 1 - JOSIAH

And she conceived again, and bare a daughter.
And God said unto [Hosea], call her name Lo-ruchama, 'not-forgiven':
for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel;
but I will utterly take them away.
    -Hosea 1:6

ONE - JOSIAH

    Where was he? With madness glazing his eyes, he stared about himself. In bed but where? And then slowly, as the dream fell away, he recognised the grey sheets that half covered him, the bare white walls, the metal floor, the steel sink in the corner - he was in his chambers. A long sigh fell from Josiah’s mouth and he collapsed back into the pillow. His mouth was so dry, his sheets were soaked with cooling sweat, and yet Josiah forced himself to lie down again and close his eyes; not to sleep but to say the prayer for bad dreams. He clutched his pendant - a metal fist over a full moon - and, too easily, the words came to his lips and he mumbled them to the darkness - he had had too many nightmares of late.
    “God of Steel, watch over my soul as it drifts from my body. Let no truth be found in evil dreams and may no harm come to me through these visions. For you are the One That Dreams Not. And make my flesh as steel. Amen.”