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Name: Priscilla
They weren't going that fast, all things considered. The four of them were holding a steady 105 mph, as if they were confident that the show could not start before they got there. It couldn't. They had all the time in the world, such as it was.
Just behind them came four other riders: Big Ted, Greaser, Pigbog, and Skuzz.
They were elated. They were real Hell's Angels now, and they rode the silence.
Around them, they knew, was the roar of the thunderstorm, the thunder of traffic, the whipping of the wind and the rain. But in the wake of the Horsemen there was silence, pure and dead. Almost pure, anyway. Certainly dead.
It was broken by Pigbog, shouting to Big Ted.
"What you going to be, then?" he asked, hoarsely.
"What?"
"I said, what you-"
"I heard what you said. It's not what you said. Everyone heard what you said. What did you mean, tha's what I wanter know?"
Pigbog wished he'd paid more attention to the Book of Revelation.
If he'd known he was going to be in it, he'd have read it more carefully. "What I mean is, they're the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right?"
"Bikers," said Greaser.
"Right. Four Bikers of the Apocalypse. War, Famine, Death, and-, and the other one. P'lution."
"Yeah? So?"
"So they said it was all right if we came with them, right?"
"So?"
"So we're the other Four Horse-, um, Bikers of the Apocalypse. So which ones are we?"
There was a pause. The lights of passing cars shot past them in the opposite lane, lightning after-imaged the clouds, and the silence was close to absolute.
"Can I be War as well?" asked Big Ted.
"Course you can't be War. How can you be War? She's War. You've got to be something else."
Big Ted screwed up his face with the effort of thought. "G.B.H.," he said, eventually. "I'm Grievous Bodily Harm. That's me. There. Wott're you going to be?"
"Can I be Rubbish?" asked Skuzz. "Or Embarrassing Personal Problems?"
"Can't be Rubbish," said Grievous Bodily Harm. "He's got that one sewn up, Pollution. You can be the other, though."
They rode on in the silence and the dark, the rear red lights of the Four a few hundred yards in front of them.
Grievous Bodily Harm, Embarrassing Personal Problems, Pigbog and Greaser.
"I wonter be Cruelty to Animals," said Greaser. Pigbog wondered if he was for or against it. Not that it really mattered.
And then it was Pigbog's turn.
"I, uh . . . I think I'll be them answer phones. They're pretty bad," he said.
"You can't be ansaphones. What kind of a Biker of the Repocalypse is ansaphones? That's stupid, that is."
"S'not!" said Pigbog, nettled. "It's like War, and Famine, and that. It's a problem of life, isn't it? Answer phones. I hate bloody answer phones."
"I hate ansaphones, too," said Cruelty to Animals.
"You can shut up," said G.B.H.
"Can I change mine?" asked Embarrassing Personal Problems, who had been thinking intently since he last spoke. "I want to be Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Thumped Them."
"All right, you can change. But you can't be ansaphones, Pigbog. Pick something else."
Pigbog pondered. He wished he'd never broached the subject. It was like the careers interviews he had had as a schoolboy. He deliberated.
"Really cool people," he said at last. "I hate them."
"Really cool people?" said Things Not Working Properly Even Af-ter You've Given Them A Good Thumping.
"Yeah. You know. The kind you see on telly, with stupid haircuts, only on them it dun't look stupid 'cos it's them. They wear baggy suits, an' you're not allowed to say they're a bunch of wankers. I mean, speaking for me, what I always want to do when I see one of them is push their faces very slowly through a barbed-wire fence. An' what I think is this." He took a deep breath. He was sure this was the longest speech he had ever made in his life. [Except for one about ten years earlier, throwing himself on the mercy of the court.] "What I think is this. If they get up my nose like that, they pro'lly get up everyone else's."
"Yeah," said Cruelty to Animals. "An' they all wear sunglasses even when they dunt need 'em."
"Eatin' runny cheese, and that stupid bloody No Alcohol Lager," said Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping. "I hate that stuff. What's the point of drinking the stuff if it dun't leave you puking? Here, I just thought. Can I change again, so I'm No Alcohol Lager?"
"No you bloody can't," said Grievous Bodily Harm. "You've changed once already."
"Anyway," said Pigbog. "That's why I wonter be Really Cool People."
"All right," said his leader.
"Don't see why I can't be No bloody Alcohol Lager if I want."
"Shut your face."
Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking toward Tadfield.
And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People traveled with them.
The four bikers ignored all the signs, and cones, and police cars, and continued down the empty southbound carriageway of the M6. The other four bikers, just behind them, slowed a little.
"Shouldn't we, uh, stop or something?" asked Really Cool People.
"Yeah. Could be a pile-up," said Treading in Dogshit (formerly All Foreigners Especially The French, formerly Things Not Working Properly Even When You've Given Them a Good Thumping, never actually No Alcohol Lager, briefly Embarrassing Personal Problems, formerly known as Skuzz).
"We're the other Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," said G.B.H. "We do what they do. We follow them."
They rode south.
The rain wasn't helping.
"Any idea when the bulldozers are likely to get here?" he shouted into his radio.
"We're crrrrk doing the best we crrrrk, " came the reply.
He felt something tugging at his trouser cuff, and looked down.
"Lobsters?" He gave a little skip, and a jump, and wound up on the top of the police car. "Lobsters," he repeated. There were about thirty of them-some over two feet long. Most of them were on their way up the motorway; half a dozen had stopped to check out the police car.
"Something wrong, Sarge?" asked the police constable, who was taking down the lorry driver's details on the hard shoulder.
"I just don't like lobsters," said the sergeant, grimly, shutting his eyes. "Bring me out in a rash. Too many legs. I'll just sit up here a bit, and you can tell me when they've all gone."
He sat on the top of the car, in the rain, and felt the water seeping into the bottom of his trousers.
There was a low roar. Thunder? No. It was continuous, and getting closer. Motorbikes. The sergeant opened one eye.
Jesus Christ!
There were four of them, and they had to be doing over a hundred. He was about to climb down, to wave at them, to shout, but they were past him, heading straight for the upturned lorry.
There was nothing the sergeant could do. He closed his eyes again, and listened for the collision. He could hear them coming closer. Then:
Whoosh.
Whoosh.
Whoosh.
And a voice in his head that said, I'LL CATCH UP WITH THE REST OF YOU.
("Did you see that?" asked Really Cool People. "They flew right over it!"
"kin'ell!" said G.B.H. "If they can do it, we can too!")
The sergeant opened his eyes. He turned to the police constable and opened his mouth.
The police constable said, "They. They actually. They flew righ . . ."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Splat.
There was another rain of fish, although of shorter duration, and more easily explicable. A leather jacketed arm waved feebly from the large pile of fish. A motorbike wheel spun hopelessly.
That was Skuzz, semi-conscious, deciding that if there was one thing he hated even more than the French it was being up to his neck in fish with what felt like a broken leg. He truly hated that.
He wanted to tell G.B.H. about his new role; but he couldn't move. Something wet and slippery slithered up one sleeve.
Later, when they'd dragged him out of the fish pile, and he'd seen the other three bikers, with the blankets over their heads, he realized it was too late to tell them anything.
That was why they hadn't been in that Book of Revelations Pigbog had been going on about. They'd never made it that far down the motor-way.
Skuzz muttered something. The police sergeant leaned over. "Don't try to speak, son," he said. "The ambulance'll be here soon."
"Listen," croaked Skuzz. "Got something important to tell you. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . . . they're right bastards, all four of them."
"He's delirious," announced the sergeant.
"I'm sodding not. I'm People Covered In Fish," croaked Skuzz, and passed out.
All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one.
The angel of the Eastern Gate put his wings over his head to shield himself from the first drops.
"I'm sorry," he said politely. "What was it you were saying?"
"I said, that one went down like a lead balloon," said the serpent.
"Oh. Yes," said the angel, whose name was Aziraphale.
"I think it was a bit of an overreaction, to be honest," said the serpent. "I mean, first offense and everything. I can't see what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway."
"It must be bad," reasoned Aziraphale, in the slightly concerned tones of one who can't see it either, and is worrying about it, "otherwise you wouldn't have been involved."
"They just said, Get up there and make some trouble," said the serpent, whose name was Crawly, although he was thinking of changing it now. Crawly, he'd decided, was not him.
"Yes, but you're a demon. I'm not sure if it's actually possible for you to do good," said Aziraphale. "It's down to your basic, you know, nature. Nothing personal, you understand."
"You've got to admit it's a bit of a pantomime, though," said Crawly. "I mean, pointing out the Tree and saying 'Don't Touch' in big letters. Not very subtle, is it? I mean, why not put it on top of a high mountain or a long way off? Makes you wonder what He's really planning."