Shards by Shane Jiraiya Cummings Page A

I
wake.
    April 2
    Aunt Lucia believes I'll be
ushering in the apocalypse in exactly 66 days. She told me so at
dinner this evening. At first I thought it was some belated April
Fool's gag, but no, she was deadly serious. She doesn't have a
sense of humour. However, she did have a whole bunch of mouldy old
scrolls and prophecies and mystical doo-dads to prove her
point.
    Word for word, she said,
"ushering in the apocalypse". That's too much shit for a
sixteen-year-old to take. A thousand years of Hell on Earth for
Christ's sake! That's what she said. A thousand freakin' years.
    April 3
    I lied. I'm not sixteen. Not
yet, anyway. It'll be my birthday in soon. June 6. I've been told
all I'm getting is my birthright: fire and brimstone and the sum
total of human sin. Nothing special.
    All I want is to get laid. Is
that too much to ask?
    April 5
    I call the crow at my window
Abigail. The name just fits, somehow. She visits every night now.
Her twelve brothers and sisters lurk in the tree, cawing at each
other.
    Abigail sang me to sleep last
night. For the first time in a long time, the nightmare didn't
return.
    April 6
    Aunt Lucia caught me praying in
my bedroom tonight. She flogged me, the old witch, flogged me till
I bled and couldn't sit down properly. She was scowling while she
did it, but it looked like grinning to me, like she took pleasure
in it. Then she lectured me for an hour about my "place" in the
scheme of things. If there's gonna be a thousand years of Hell on
Earth, I've got a nice little lake of fire in mind with her name on
it.
    April 9
    I'm seeing things that aren't
there. Black things, shadows, wandering the halls at school, moving
between the crowds. Sometimes they pass through people, and when
they do, that person faints or dry-reaches.
    I thought I saw these things
when I was younger, but it's happening all the time now. It doesn't
freak me out as much as it probably should.
    I hear things, too, like
people's inner thoughts. Their 'soul murmurings' Abigail told me. I
hear other sounds, too, but the less said about them, the
better.
    April 12
    I still pray, usually in the
dead of night, when Lucia should be deep in her hag sleep. Abigail
watches over me, but I'm not sure about the other crows. If they
hear me, and they must because their ears are damn sharp, then
Lucia comes barging in to check up on me. Never in time to catch me
but often enough to keep me on my toes.
    April 13
    People bruise when I touch
them, skin on skin. Aunt Lucia and the nannies wear gloves and long
sleeves. I remind myself of this because Brendan Amery, the new kid
at school, grabbed me. He must have been trying to score points
with the popular crowd by beating up on the weird kid. The moment
he grabbed my arm, he recoiled as if he'd been bitten by a snake.
The bruise sprouted from right beneath his fingers and leached out
to the back of his hand.
    He spat at me and said a few
things I won't repeat (but I've memorised for later use), which
made me do a stupid thing. I pushed him. By the face. He tumbled
backwards, holding his face and screaming. I won't ever forget his
puffy purple cheek bloating under his puffy purple fingers, and
especially the way his eye drooped because of it. And the
screaming. There's always the screaming.
    I guess that's something extra
to add to the nightmares.
    April 14
    If I'm supposed to be this big
bad Antichrist guy, then why I can't I speak to God or the Devil?
God must be too aloof to chat. Too cool for school to chat to his
opposite number's brat.
    "Dad" ... well, I never had a
Dad, but he's flying under the radar, too. I've never had a
father-figure (unless you count that sleazy old Brit who keeps
sniffing around Aunt Lucia). If Satan is evil incarnate, I guess
being a deadbeat Dad is something he has to do. It's part of his
nature, right?
    Anyway, it's Good Friday today.
Nothing much good about it in my book---I've been sick all day.
Speaking of books, I wonder if people will write a bible about me?
It