There was a roar outside. It was the roar of a motorbike with a defective exhaust, untuned engine, leaky carburetor. You didn't have to see the bike to imagine the clouds of black smoke it traveled in, the oil slicks it left in its wake, the trail of small motorbike parts and fittings that littered the roads behind it.
Black went up to the counter.
"Four teas, please," he said. "One black."
The café door opened. A young man in dusty white leathers entered, and the wind blew empty crisp packets and newspapers and ice cream wrappers in with him. They danced around his feet like excited children, then fell exhausted to the floor.
"Four of you, are there, dear?" asked the woman. She was trying to find some clean cups and tea spoons—the entire rack seemed suddenly to have been coated in a light film of motor oil and dried egg.
"There will be," said the man in black, and he took the teas and went back to the table, where his two comrades waited.
"Any sign of him?" said the boy in white.
They shook their heads.
An argument had broken out around the video screen (current categories showing on the screen were War, Famine, Pollution, and Pop Trivia 1962—1979).
"Elvis Presley? 'Sgotta be 'C'—it was 1977 he snuffed it, wasn't it?"
"Nah. 'D.' 1976. I'm positive."
"Yeah. Same year as Bing Crosby."
"And Marc Bolan. He was dead good. Press 'D,' then. Go on."
The tall figure made no motion to press any of the buttons.
"Woss the matter with you?" asked Big Ted, irritably. "Go on. Press 'D.' Elvis Presley died in 1976."
I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAYS, said the tall biker in the helmet, I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.
The three people at the table turned as one. Red spoke. "When did you get here?" she asked.
The tall man walked over to the table, leaving the astonished bikers, and his winnings, behind him. I NEVER WENT AWAY, he said, and his voice was a dark echo from the night places, a cold slab of sound, gray, and dead. If that voice was a stone it would have had words chiseled on it a long time ago: a name, and two dates.
"Your tea's getting cold, lord," said Famine.
"It's been a long time," said War.
There was a flash of lightning, almost immediately followed by a low rumble of thunder.
"Lovely weather for it," said Pollution.
YES.
The bikers around the game were getting progressively baffled by this exchange. Led by Big Ted, they shambled over to the table and stared at the four strangers.
It did not escape their notice that all four strangers had HELL'S ANGELS on their jackets. And they looked dead dodgy as far as the Angels were concerned: too clean for a start; and none of the four looked like they'd ever broken anyone's arm just because it was Sunday afternoon and there wasn't anything good on the telly. And one was a woman, too, only not ridin' around on the back of someone's bike but actually allowed one of her own, like she had any right to it.
"You're Hell's Angels, then?" asked Big Ted, sarcastically. If there's one thing real Hell's Angels can't abide, it's weekend bikers.*
The four strangers nodded.
"What chapter are you from, then?"
The Tall Stranger looked at Big Ted. Then he stood up. It was a complicated motion; if the shores of the seas of night had deckchairs, they'd open up something like that.
He seemed to be unfolding himself forever.
He wore a dark helmet, completely hiding his features. And it was made of that weird plastic, Big Ted noted. Like, you looked in it, and all you could see was your own face.
REVELATIONS, he said. CHAPTER SIX.
"Verses two to eight," added the boy in white, helpfully.
Big Ted glared at the four of them. His lower jaw began to protrude, and a little blue vein in his temple started to throb. "Wossat mean then?" he demanded.
There was a tug at his sleeve. It was Pigbog. He had gone a peculiar shade of gray, under the dirt.
"It means we're in trouble," said Pigbog.
And then the tall stranger reached up a pale motorbike gauntlet, and raised the visor of his helmet, and Big Ted found himself wishing, for the first time in his existence, that he'd lived a better life.
"Jesus Christ!" he moaned.
"I think He may be along in a minute," said Pigbog urgently. "He's probably looking for somewhere to park his bike. Let's go and, and join a youf club or somethin'…"
But Big Ted's invincible ignorance was his shield and armor. He didn't move.
"Cor," he said. "Hell's Angels."
War flipped him a lazy salute.
"That's us, Big Ted," she said. "The real McCoy."
Famine nodded. "The Old Firm," he said.
Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old boy had known what opportunities the future had held…
"Others promise," he said, "we deliver."
Big Ted looked at the fourth Horseman. "'Ere, I seen you before," he said. "You was on the cover of that Blue Oyster Cult album. An' I got a ring wif your… your… your head on it."
I GET EVERYWHERE.
"Cor." Big Ted's big face screwed up with the effort of thought.
"Wot kind of bike you ridin'?" he said.
The storm raged around the quarry. The rope with the old car tire on it danced in the gale. Sometimes a sheet of iron, relic of an attempt at a tree house, would shake loose from its insubstantial moorings and sail away.
The Them huddled together, staring at Adam. He seemed bigger, somehow. Dog sat and growled. He was thinking of all the smells he would lose. There were no smells in Hell, apart from the sulphur. While some of them here, were, were… well, the fact was, there were no bitches in hell either.
Adam was marching about excitedly, waving his hands in the air. "There'll be no end to the fun we can have," he said. "There'll be exploring and everything. I 'spect I can soon get the ole jungles to grow again."
"But—but who—who'll do the, you know, all the cooking and washing and suchlike?" quavered Brian.
"No one'll have to do any of that stuff," said Adam. "You can have all the food you like, loads of chips, fried onion rings, anything you like. An' never have to wear any new clothes or have a bath if you don't want to or anything. Or go to school or anything. Or do anything you don't want to do, ever again. It'll be wicked!"
The moon came up over the Kookamundi Hills. It was very bright tonight.
Johnny Two Bones sat in the red basin of the desert. It was a sacred place, where two ancestral rocks, formed in the Dream-time, lay as they had since the beginning. Johnny Two Bones' walkabout was coming to an end. His cheeks and chest were smeared with red ochre, and he was singing an old song, a sort of singing map of the hills, and he was drawing patterns in the dust with his spear.
He had not eaten for two days; he had not slept. He was approaching a trance state, making him one with the Bush, putting him into communion with his ancestors.