- The Death of Dave
Dave died peacefully of a massive heart attack as he lay in his recliner chair, beer in his right hand, the remote control to his entertainment system in the other.
He was halfway through ‘Who Dares Wins’ when he died. None of that fake heroic shit for HIM.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad death, he’d spent the afternoon in the pub with the lads, regaling them with his stories and watching the awe in their eyes as they listened.
A short walk home, a kebab and then a film.
A good death.
Dave was surprised to find himself floating out of his body, hanging slightly above it and to see that he looked peaceful, although the piss-stain on the front of his trousers wasn’t quite flattering.
He watched a few more minutes of the film, Lewis Collins was getting the shit kicked out of him in a docklands flat but the shimmering on the wall behind the TV was off putting.
Shimmering?
The wall was gone, a foggy landscape showed almost nothing, maybe the outline of a few trees and something approaching.
A figure.
An armed and armoured figure.
It stood there at the threshold, extended a metallic hand and a deep voice boomed.
‘COME BROTHER, YOUR REST AWAITS’.
Dave moved nervously forward and the warrior made a ‘hurry up’ gesture.
Dave took the armoured hand.
And was gone.
2. The Mist
Dave found himself in a bizarre landscape, a Tiger Tank was ablaze next to a Vietnam War era APC, a pile of swords and edged weapons sat alongside Uzis and AR-15s.
Uniforms were piled haphazardly, Kevlar vests atop chain-mail and there was a song playing somewhere.
Or more accurately, a deep thrumming bassline.
BOOMBOOM. BOOMBOMBBBB.
Dave looked to the warrior, it made a vague gesture towards the weapons – ‘Take whatever you want. This is your arms cache. It’s all yours..’
It gestured again.
Dave grabbed a combat shotgun, an oversized Bowie knife, a Kimber .45 and a camouflage poncho with lots of pockets.
He frantically grabbed at ammunition as the figure walked away towards a horizon that seemed to be on fire.
Jets and helicopters screamed overhead, along with eerie Stuka dive-bombers that SCREAMED as they dove and rapidly climbed.
Horses moved somewhere in the woods and Dave could hear shouting and screaming in dozens of languages.
And the music, it was insane.
‘Ride of the Valkyries, overlaid with ‘Paint it Black’ with ‘Young Men Dead’ cutting through . Hundreds of separate soundtracks in dozens of languages.
Dave ran to keep up with the warrior, it seemed completely unbothered by the noise and the screaming, the blood and the explosions, the projectiles and the shrapnel.
The earth rose and fell with the impact of shattering explosions and a company of British cavalry to his right was entangled in a brutal fight with a French contingent who had allowed their square to break, swords crashed down on unprotected limbs and there was more screaming and howling.
Dave hurried on.
The mist hid some scenes completely, but opened up to show scenes of mind-boggling horror, bodies blown apart by automatic cannons, engulfed in stinking fire from flamethrowers and pinned down by the weight of arrows.
It was endless.
An armoured samurai was pinned to the ground by a group of peasants and stabbed with tiny knives, sticks and finally, his own sword, the peasants then gleefully running at the next armoured figure in the distance.
‘KEEP UP BROTHER, YOUR DESTINY AWAITS.”
The warrior beckoned Dave with one armoured hand, swatting away a lance pointed at his head with the other.
Dave scurried to keep up, the weight of his new weapons tugging at his shoulders, crying out as an RPG whizzed past his head.
‘What IS this placeWhere am I What the fuck is going ONNN?’
Dave cried out the last part as a mounted warrior angled a huge sword towards his head, missing by a breath.
‘THIS?’
THIS.’
‘THIS BROTHER IS THE GATEWAY TO A WARRIOR’S AFTERLIFE. ALL THAT YOU DESERVE AWAITS YOU, YOUR DEEDS WILL BE KNOWN THROUGHOUT ETERNITY.’
A huge red moon shone behind the warrior, gunships rained fire down on unseen ground troops and a zeppelin floated slowly across, harassed on all sides by biplanes.
Dave swelled with pride, recognition in the afterlife! What more could a brave man desire?
3. Heart of Darkness
He muttered his favourite prayer as he followed the warrior into a dark tunnel.
‘Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people,
Back to the beginning Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of Valhalla, Where the brave may live forever!’
Very fucking dark actually.
Very, very fucking dark.
He could no longer see the warrior, and could only follow the sound of his armour clanking as they walked.
And walked.
And walked.
The silence was eerier than the screaming and noise had been. Every now and again,Dave could hear the chittering of legs and claws, things breathed near his ears and then vanished into the darkness.
Despite being very dead, he could feel his bladder getting ready to give up.
And then.
And then.
A sign.
A big red illuminated sign.
Was that?
No.
Couldn’t be.
IT WAS…
The bar front to end all bar fronts.
Armour clad, guns and edged weapons bristling from every window and door. A huge fire visible through the smoky windows and a huge throng of men within.
The sign was enormous.
Red neon letters, each fifty feet tall, so bright that it hurt to look at it.
WALHALA
The warrior opened the door for Dave and he walked in.
4. YOUR DEEDS WILL BE KNOWN THROUGHOUT ETERNITY.
The warrior did a perfect about turn, saluted Dave with a small bow and walked out through the door, which then disappeared behind him, leaving a blank wall.
Dave turned again and saw a throng of tables stretching as far as the eye could see, each table was occupied by men of all nations, they all seemed to be talking at the same time.
They all looked animated and wild eyed, and yet bored at the same time.
Dave was confused.
Wherever he looked, it was the same.
There was also a bar.
A very strange bar.
It was enormous, it stretched for miles and had bottles and kegs, hand-pumps and gleaming neon taps, bottles of tequila and sake blended with vodka and murky bottles that had no label. Stone cups and cut crystal seemed to occupy the same space.
Flags of all nations were overlaid with the hides of animals and the bar was lit by naked flames, dim bulbs and Neon all at the same time.
Dave squinted, blinked his eyes and slapped his head.
Then he just closed his eyes and listed to the dull roar of all the talking.
‘Hello Dave, the usual?’
Dave opened his eyes to see that he was now standing at the bar – or at least a bit of it, a familar looking barman was holding a pint glass under a Heineken pump.
‘Er, yes please, er… Steve?’
‘That’s it Dave’
‘Er, where exactly am I? I expected a bit more after coming through all that stuff outside.’
‘This is your afterlife Dave, this is your reward, would you like to meet some of the regulars?’
Dave just nodded dumbly, taking his pint from the bar.
‘Excellent, over here lads…’
The barman waved vaguely and Dave found himself in a throng of men, they were all talking at the same time.
‘Ohfuckyeah, I grabbed that skid and let myself be lifted, Saigon looked like Hell below me…As soon as I hit the balcony, I was ready to slot the first terrorist.. I ran at the Argie trenches beside H and saw him fall, I got a few of those fuckers with my bayonet…Johnny Frog was afraid of our English steel and I broke their square..Those redcoat bastards ran as soon as they saw my axe…I pulled the pilot from the gunship wreckage and just started shooting..Those Spanish bastards shat themselves when I dived overboard at swam at their galleon…..’
Dave put his fingers in his ears and turned back to the barman.
‘WHAT SORT OF FUCKING AFTERLIFE IS THIS? WHERE’S THE FIGHTING? WHERE’S THE FEASTING? WHERES’S THE GIRLS AND THE FUCKING FUCKING? HOW THE FUCK CAN THIS BE VALHALLA?’
The barman smiled.
Don’t worry Dave, you’ll be OK in a minute, you just need to adjust. And i need to fix that fucking sign. This isn’t Valhalla.
This Is WaltHalla, where boring old cunts who stole other men’s valour tell each other the same fucking stories for eternity.
Anyway – Valhalla is next door, you’ll hear their parties sometimes, but it won’t bother you after a while, another beer?’
Tears ran down Dave’s face and he nodded.
And found himself saying.
‘Did I tell you about Goose Green? God my feet were bleeding and I only had one magazine left……’
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