The Four Horseman

The dusty truck stop had been in the middle of nowhere for sixty years and it looked like it would still be nowhere in another sixty. The desert was still too rough, to deadly for civilisation to encroach too far and it seemed that even the road was scared. The tarmac looped and rolled through the scrubby and sand driven landscape as if it wanted to get away and most of the travellers on it had the same thoughts.
That was why the diner and garage did so well. Hot and thirty travellers who wanted a break and to check the damage the desert was doing to both their vehicles and their bodies. The food was good, warm and homemade in a way that made some of them wistful for the simpler times gone by. To most however, the iced coffees and air conditioning were what they craved and as the sun rose higher so did the flow of traffic.
The heat didn’t bother the man riding a low slung motorbike at ninety along the highway. The machine purred and hummed, the engineering made by man but the rider now anything but. He wore no helmet, messy black hair tugged by the wind as he pressed his foot down a little more. His tee shirt rippled in the wind, the cut away sleeves revealing a riot of colour that flowed down onto his hands. He rode with a practised ease, his eyes shaded by sunglasses. Along the gas tank of the bike was a stylised title…
WHITE RIDER
Syn didn’t need to stop, he still could and did drink since he had returned but it wasn’t really needed, just a base memory from what had been before. It was part nostalgia and part knowing that made him pull into the diner. A solid hamburger and a cold beer on such a hot day had been a delight and he wanted to repeat it again and wait there for the power that he knew was coming. He could feel that Johnny was close, that all the pieces were in position and soon his work could begin.
It was almost an erotic thought.
He drew the motorbike into the car park and stretched as he walked towards the diner. Syn looked different now, still handsome and young with the cocky grin that people fell in love with. There was just something fathomless in those chocolate brown eyes. He could look into a man’s soul and see what was there, see all the corruption and all the purity and soon he would be able to burn it out of them along with his brothers.
“Cheeseburger and fries please, you got any beer?”
The brassy waitress tried to pick her jaw up from the counter at the beautiful man in front of her and just shook her head. Syn smiled.
“Coffee will do….Sharon.”
Syn pulled his eyes up from her nameplate straining on its pin that anchored it to some impressive breasts and slid onto the bar stool at the worn out counter. The place was heaving and busy, the other bar stools occupied mostly by truck drivers and haggard tourists. There was a low hum of chatter that Syn tuned out as he listened to his mind.
C’mon short shit, let’s do this thing.
You have no patience Gates.
Start the apocalypse already.
Nearly there….fuck.
Syn smiled to himself at the flash of pain in his head and wondered which part of Johnny that came from as the waitress put the coffee down in front of him and gave him her best smile. He fought not to wince and smiled, his fingers idly stirring the spoon in the black liquid and he breathed in the sweet vapours. Place might look like shit but they sure knew how to make coffee.
“That’s a nice bike.”
Syn looked up, three men stood on the other side of the counter watching him.
“Thanks, its one of a kind.”
“How much you want for it?”
The waitress nervously shushed them as she put the loaded plate down in front of the handsome boy. He picked out a fry and added ketchup to the plate before responding. His voice was low and still friendly but adamant.
“Sorry, she’s not for sale. It would be like selling my horse.”
The tallest of the men was the diner’s owner, a swarthy man in is fifties who had the build of a man half his age. He leant on the cracked plastic of the counter and looked the visitor. He had seen this type before, California street punks who thought their money and nice rides entitled them to something. He and his sons could find a good buyer for that bike and the snot nosed bitch in front of him would disappear into a desert grave.
“Well that’s a mighty shame son….”
Syn stared at him, seeing what he intended and taking in the two heavily set sons that just added to the illusion of intimidation. He could hear Matt laughing in his mind, even when they had been mortal it would have been no problem for him and his friends to take these bastards down. Now it would be like playing with bugs and Syn had more important things to do.
“I could do with a tune up while I’m here though.”
The boss flashed him a tobacco stained grin and nodded happily.
“Sure thing, how’s eighty bucks sound?”
Sharon tried to shake her head at the customer at the risk of earning herself a beating later on. Her pa knew nothing about bikes or anything else that involved talent. He was just a dumb man who had struck lucky and she didn’t want the customer to pay for it.
“Fifty.”
“Sixty five.”
Syn shrugged, finishing his coffee and smirking at the waitress to get another. The sky was darkening outside, the previously brilliant blue sky disappearing behind a roiling bank of clouds. Nobody in the diner really paid much attention, the heat had not dropped and their attention was being taken by the confrontation at the counter. It did feel like the minutes before a thunderstorm, an outpouring of electrical energy that seemed to build around them until everyone was watching as Syn stood up.
His mind had stopped thinking about the mortals at all. It had happened, he could feel the power in his veins and here Johnny’s voice in his head.
“It’s done.”
Two simple words but Syn knew his time had come. It was time to repay the debt of being saved and reborn. Time to fulfil his destiny and that of his brothers. He was Conquest and now he would set out in search of Matt, Zacky and Jimmy. Together they would bring down the corruption of the mortals and the more important battles could begin. Mentally he told Johnny where to take the two women, the rendezvous point, before turning his mind back to the three men now backing him into a corner.
“Your sales pitch needs work.”
The owner’s grin was now unpleasant, the customers looking away and remarking on the darkening crowd outside. Anything to avoid looking at something that could so easily turn violent. Syn ran a hand through his hair, wishing he had his bandanna as the man squared up to him.
“That’s an insult that will cost you that bike. Fucking queer, your boyfriend give it to you?”
“No, he prefers 1950’s cars….”
The man’s smile faltered as Syn bunched his knuckles and looked around.
“You want to do this here? Plenty of witnesses.”
The two sons pushed forward, a blond shoving Syn in the chest as the other picked up a baseball bat that the waitress kept under the bar. Nobody was looking their way now, everyone remarking on the flashes of lightening that were bouncing off the tarmac road outside. Thunder roared as Syn grinned picked up the blond by the hair.
“Well if you insist….”
The second son came rushing forward, Syn didn’t miss a beat and tripped him into three fat tourists from Florida without letting go of the swearing, kicking teen. The father came rushing towards them as the fight rippled outward and the other customers tried to get out of the way. All the diner’s doors locked themselves, frightening the customers even more until screaming and shouting drowned out the natural sounds from outside. Syn grabbed the father by the throat with his other hand and bellowed a single word.
“ENOUGH!!!”
Everything froze, people and sound stilled by the command. The two men he held still struggled as everything turned back to face the beautiful and frightening man in their midst. All of them could feel in themselves that he was not one of them, not of the world and yet all wanted to stare at him. Syn grinned and shook the two men again.
“I am Conquest, I have come to make you kneel before the second coming. So?”
As one thirty people knelt, still staring up at him. The flashes of lightening were almost constant as a deluge of rain struck the building and the mile surrounding it. The thunder seemed to echo everywhere and between the strobing flashes of light there was a pitch black. The customers felt their eyes sting and water, the noise battering as it was joined by screaming.
The two men had stopped struggling and now locusts and spiders burst from their mouths, thousands of them, dropping onto the people and floor of the diner. Syn giggled as they tried to run, beating on doors and windows as the insects covered them. Syn picked up his burger with a satisfied grin and waited as the rain slowed down along with the screaming. He stepped out and locked the door behind him, enjoying the taste of meat and onions as he mounted the bike and drew a deep breath.
It had begun and now he had to find Johnny.

Notes