Ruin of the Old Gods

Chapter 1 - Ara

The gods walk amongst us.

At least, that's what my father used to tell me. To tell anyone.

But my father told too many people about the whispers of the old gods. He told them too openly – and once too often – so that they locked him away in Brick Glen Psychiatric Hospital. For three whole years I'd written to him in that prison of the broken-minded, but I'd not seen his face since before my fifteenth birthday.

Personally, I'd never seen the old gods – nor did I hear them speak to me – but part of me hoped that they had once existed, for my father's sake. Regardless of whether he was mad or whether the gods did walk amongst us, once I started to feel hidden eyes on my back, I stayed quiet about it. People whisper that psychosis runs in a family, and I didn't want to see in my eighteenth birthday trapped inside of a hospital for the damned.

So I stayed quiet.

But all summer long, I couldn't escape the feeling that someone was watching me. Whenever a door slammed in the wind, whenever I caught movement from the corner of my eye, my soul was brushed with terror's crisp touch and I feared that my time had come. Try as hard as I might, I couldn't shake a sense that some impending doom was hanging just around the corner.

As I settled into my seat on that plane to Philadelphia, I felt it more keenly still. Eyes watching me. I thought I caught a strange look from a thick-set man seated two rows in front, a surreptitious glance from beneath a heavy brow.

Something behind those eyes spoke to me of evil.

Yet he was just another man in a suit, with a neat haircut and an A4 laminated card on his knees. I breathed deeply and reminded myself that evil does not read the in-flight manual.

After my mother's death, my father had been plagued by a nameless fear too – the trauma of losing her had disturbed his mind. Perhaps the thought of finally flying out to meet him had brought all those memories back, the wounds of childhood opening once more to unsettle my own mind.

I tried to push away the thought away – the idea that what had happened to my mother had finally caught up with me too – I pushed it away and I buried ill feelings with the book in my lap, hiding from troubling thoughts through earphones and my favourite music.

I remember that the book was The Shining – a tale of horror and madness and murder: perhaps not the best choice for someone whose mind felt like it was coming away at the seams.

Flight attendants had already checked overhead compartments and the plane was taxiing towards the runway when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jolted upright and hoped that I hadn't gasped too loudly when a boy mouthed his apology over the sound of my music and pointed at the empty window-seat. Slipping past me and into his place without giving me chance to get up, with a rough tumble of dark locks and animated almond eyes, he slumped into his seat and pulled the blind down without a word.

Quite the gentleman.

I'll admit that I snatched a sideways glance, drawn by the markings which showed at the base of his neck – letters in an ancient hand. Strange, inked words – in an odd place for a tattoo – made for a rather bad tattoo, spoiling an otherwise attractive boy. And that strange tattooed boy didn't say a word until an hour in when the flight attendant came with the drinks trolley.

"I'll have a chalice of mead," he said, before I'd had a chance to ask for my own drink.

"Mead?" the attendant asked him politely.

"Yes. Wine of the gods," said Tattoos, "Icarus himself drank it."

She looked puzzled, squinting at the assortment of drinks and snacks on the metal trolley.

"Fine," said Tattoos after an awkward pause, "if you've no mead, then I'll have whiskey. That's almost as old."

"Sorry, sir," she said, "you're not old enough to drink."

"I'm old enough, lady," he said, "so set to it. And I'll take that whiskey on ice if you wouldn't mind."

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any ID?"

"Yes."

"Can I see it?"

"I suppose." He pulled out a battered leather wallet, all marks and scrapes. Taking out a driver's license and reaching over me, he handed it to the attendant.

"Whose ID is this?" she asked.

"Mine," sighed the boy.

"This ID is clearly fake," said the attendant, "whose ID is this?"

"Like I said: mine. As you can see from the picture."

"You were born in 1965?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"I doubt that."

"Think of me like that wrinkly old fuck from Benjamin Button," said the boy, "what did he have wrong with him?"

"Progeria," I offered. I'd seen the film with my mother, before her accident. We'd watched it together and she'd cried at the ending.

"Thank you," said Tattoos, "see, lady, this girl gets it. I've got Pro-er-grya... so I'm old as fuck and that's my real ID. Frankly I'm offended by your lack of sensitivity about my condition. And as a paying customer – of the appropriate age – I'll have a whisky. With ice."

"I'd remind you to watch your language, sir." said the attendant, her patience waning, "And I think this ID is fake. So, if you persist, I'll have to check it. Then I'll have to call the police when we land at Philadelphia – you know it's an offence to provide false documents. Can I see your passport?"

"You know what, forget it." said Tattoos, "just give me my ID back."

For an easy life, she complied, handing it back after some hesitation.

"Knew I should have flown with Delta," grumbled Tattoos, leaning back on his chair back and closing his eyes.

And then the attendant was gone. She'd moved on to the next row and I'd forgotten to order my water. I regretted it until I was another two chapters in to The Shining – right after Jack had attacked Wendy with a mallet – when I fell asleep myself.

And I awoke to pandemonium.

There was a storm outside – the peel of thunder, the crack of lightening – like the gods themselves had drawn down a tempest from the clear blue skies.

The flight attendants were seated, their delicate knuckles pressed white against the straps that held them in place whilst all around them was chaos. The captain's voice droned over the tannoy, warning us about the plane having to make an early landing in Kansas but promising us that we would live.

And the plane lurched left and right.

Then straight down.

Luggage fell from the overhead compartments. A man was hit by Gucci. Oxygen masks dropped too – people ripping at them to cover their own mouths first and then those of their crying children.

There were screams and there were curses and mumbled prayers.

Then the plane levelled.

And there was near silence in that cabin, as everyone waited in their seats for the fear to subside. Everybody in their seats, silently thanking God that they might live.

Everybody in their seats, except the heavy-set man in the suit and the neat hair.

His seat was empty.

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