come here,” the boy motioned to a position beside him. Errol stood his ground, looking at the others for support, any support. “Come on Errol, I won’t bite, I promise,” the boy grinned.
Errol slowly detached himself from the group and moved forward. A hand reluctantly released his shirt. His steps were slow and his body trembled. He faced the boy but turned side on so that he could still see the others. The boy appeared to ignore him as he addressed them all again, but to his horror Errol recognized that it was a question meant for he, and he alone to answer. He glanced sharply at the kid.
“How much did you drink tonight?”
“I didn’t, only, had a couple,” he shook even more, the pitch of his voice almost a squeal.
“Try seventeen,” the boy smiled at the group again. “And your two mates there weren’t much better. How did it feel driving with a blood alcohol concentration so high that you could have been considered clinically dead?”
“I, I didn’t, couldn’t …,” Errol turned and addressed the group himself, pleading almost.
“You could and you did,” the boy interrupted conversationally. “And how did it feel when you launched your car off the median strip at seventy-five miles an hour? Did that feel like flying!”
“No, no, I wasn’t …”
“You were, you were flying, and your car still hadn’t hit the ground when it struck these kids standing innocently at a taxi rank. Do you know they had just been out celebrating Julies’, ” he pointed at one of the girls, “sixteenth birthday? You killed them Errol, and your mates, and there is another six people still in hospital because of you Errol. Look at them,” he commanded, as Errol let his chin slump to his chest. “LOOK AT THEM!”
Errol raised his head at the shouted command. He tried to stare defiantly but failed. Everybody stared back, their hate smoldering. One of the other men spoke.
“We’re dead? ‘Coz of him? We’re dead?”
“Yup!”
“You was drinkin’ just as much as me,” Errol shouted.
“That’s a lie. After I got to the pub, yeah, true, I had three or four, just like you did, but you’d already been there for a couple of hours, and I wasn’t driving,” he responded accusingly. “Seventeen schooners Errol? Man, I knew you drank a bit, but seventeen? You got a real problem.”
“You all have a problem. He killed you all, just as if he’d gone out and bought a gun and shot you down, he killed you. You ALL have a problem now. So what you gonna do about it?”
The boys’ invitation elicited some confused looks and one of the girls, the other girl beside Julie spoke. “Why can’t I cry?”
“Because of him,” he nodded at Errol who now stood hands on hips, defensive, face set. One of his legs still trembled though. “He killed you and now you can’t cry. You can’t cry and you can’t love, but you can hate and you can wreak revenge. So what are you gonna do about it? I said what are you going to do about it?”
There was a pause of a few seconds, then one of the men growled out an oath. “You barstard” and he leapt, smashing Errol to the ground in a flying tackle.
The rest followed, jumping, kicking, punching, even the girls flailed into the melee. Their terror and fear released, there was satisfaction when their nails connected with a face, and not a care about whose face it was! The boy smiled, turned and walked away. He heard Errol utter his last screams of protest, and then the desperate screams of the others as the darkness descended. With the darkness came the lights, many, perhaps hundreds of them. Panic turned to horror as they were set upon. He heard Julie, the sixteen year old, and her final pitiful scream. He imagined the creatures as they consumed her young body. It was a shame; she was pretty and about his age.
“Don’t think like that,” a voice beside him spoke and an arm draped over his shoulders.
The boy didn’t jump. He didn’t even look in the direction of the speaker. He continued to stride confidently down the sloping, wet and broken ground before him.
“How’d I go?”
“You did well, very well. But next time, be more careful about when you invite them to react. You may have to incite them a little more first, but it worked, this time. Girangar was pleased.”
“So he should.”
The boy was stopped by the arm, which grasped at the collar of his cardigan and turned him to face the speaker. “Shhh. Girangar is not a he, nor a she. Refrain from applying gender, or any human title to Girangar.”
The boy looked into the normally smiling face of the speaker, but there was no smile. The speaker was deadly serious, and a little frightened. He had never, ever seen that before in this man.
“Then what do I call, it, him, just Girangar? What is, who is Girangar?”
The smile returned with the man’s reply. “Girangar is everything, the earth, the ocean, the rivers, the mountains, the only true misanthropist.”
“Miss who? I thought you said there was no gender?”
Again, the fear returned. “Shh. You mustn’t. Misanthropist, a true hater of mankind. Now, speak no more. Go back and we will continue your training later.”
“How am I doing?”
“Excellent. Just watch your mouth.”
“When can I come in, you know, go back?”
“You are doing very well but it has only been a year. We shall see.”
“How long does it normally take, this training?”
“For some, a matter of weeks, months, but they are the failures and they are passed on. Normal? Well, there is no normal because there has been so few, but I believe that you should be ready in another three or four year’s maybe. It is but yet early days. Now, no more. Go.”
“Just one more question, please?”
The man smiled. The curiosity of the boy, his maturity, these were the things that were making him a brilliant student – not that he would ever be told that. “Okay, one more question.”
“Why do I have to hide? Why can’t I just be me?”
“That’s two questions. And you know the answer to them both. It’s the element of surprise. Don’t worry, you will understand, by the time it’s necessary for you to know.”
“You don’t know do you?”
“Enough! Go!” And there was no smile in return.
“Really, seriously, I have a last question. Why did you say don’t think that way about the girl?”
“Because it isn’t necessary. When you return to Life and begin again, you will have a girl, or as many girls as you want. They will be at your beck and call, they will all want you, they will see that you are different, unique. But there will be one, a special one that you will want rather than any number of others, and she will look after you. She has been trained to look after you – and she waits for you now.”
“How will I know her?”
“You