it, then removed the waterproof wrapper and uncurled his contract of employment.
“Is it over?” Pest asked, opening one eye. When he saw that Famine was no longer regurgitating paperwork, he opened the other eye and brought both hands down from his ears.
Famine’s sausage-fingers fumbled slowly through the pages. Somewhere near the last page, he stopped. His bloated lips moved silently as he read.
“Anything?” War asked.
Famine nodded. “We become human, apparently.”
Pestilence’s lips seemed to tighten. “What? When?”
War snatched the contract from Famine and skimmed over the page. “Right away,” he said, at last. “Soon as we’ve finished riding.” He passed the contract back to Famine. “You know what that means?”
“We’ll be judged,” Pest gasped. “With the rest of them. We’ll all be judged.”
“Still reckon we should go through with it?” War asked him.
Pest’s face had gone pale. Paler, even, than usual. “We have to,” he whimpered. “Don’t we?”
“The way I see it,” said War, “is that, one, we don’t know if this is the real Apocalypse...”
“If it was the real one there would be signs,” Drake said, remembering the conversation on Pest’s horse. “You said so yourself. Raining blood, plagues of locusts, all that. You seen any locusts around here lately?”
“No,” Pestilence admitted. He wrung his hands together, nervously. “But, still—”
“Two,” said War, irritated by the interruption, “if it is the real Apocalypse, then this clown is only going to make a right mess of it. No offence.”
“None taken,” Drake assured him.
“Three, we’ll be judged along with the humans, which I don’t fancy one little bit.”
Pest chewed his lip. “I know all that, but... it’s our job. We’ve got to go through with it.”
War squeezed the bridge of his nose between two gloved fingers. He sighed loudly, then looked Pest squarely in the eye.
“I’m only going to say this once,” he said, his voice low. “And after that, we’re never going to talk about it again.” He cleared his throat. “I... don’t mind being in the shed with you both. I complain about it, aye, and half the time you do my head right in, with your whingeing and moaning and arguing and—”
“Was there a point coming?” asked Drake.
“What? Oh, aye. Aye.” War looked up to the sky, then back at Pest and Famine. “If I’m being honest, the other reasons don’t matter. The fact of it is, I don’t want the Apocalypse. I thought I did, but I don’t. I don’t want everything to end. I don’t want us three to end.”
“Us four,” said Pest, nodding in Drake’s direction.
“Aye. Well. Whatever. I’m just... I’m not ready for it. Not yet.”
Pest looked across the faces of the others. “What’ll happen if we don’t ride?”
War shrugged. “No idea.”
An anxious smile twitched across Pestilence’s lips. “Well, then I guess we’ll find out,” he said. He saw the surprise in War’s eyes. “It’s Wednesday, isn’t it? I mean, come on. Who has Armageddon on a Wednesday?”
“So, we put a stop to it,” Drake said. There was a commanding tone in his voice that even he hadn’t heard before. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said War.
“OK,” said Pest, not quite so confidently.
They turned to look at Famine. He had re-wrapped his contract and now had his head back as he crammed the roll of paper down his throat. There was a series of short ack-ack-ack sounds, before he swallowed it down.
“Sorry, wasn’t listening,” he admitted. “What’s happening?”
“We’re stopping the end of the world,” Drake told him.
“We can’t do that!” Famine protested. “We got the call, so we have to—”
“There’ll be a cake in it for you,” War told him.
Famine’s face became deathly serious. “I’m in. What’s the plan?”
“Dr Black’s probably still at the school,” Drake said. “If we can find out what he did maybe we can figure out how to reverse it.”
“Right then, gents,” War intoned. “Time to summon our rides. Stick to the ground, though. No going airborne.”
“We’d get there quicker if we did,” Famine said.
“Aye, but we don’t want to kick Armageddon into top gear accidentally by riding across the sky, do we?” War said. “We stick to the ground.”
“Good call,” said Pest, stepping forward. He thrust a gloved hand into the inside pocket of his suit. “But before we go anywhere...” He pulled out four matching badges. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it properly.”
Drake took the one with ‘I AM 4’ printed on it and balanced it in his palm. It was heavier than it looked, about the weight of a pound coin. He opened the fastener and tried to attach the