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The Bridge to Nowhere

It was midnight to the second when we reached the bridge that Wednesday night after the pub. The bells in the Abbey’s tower struck a solemn note. I looked at my watch and turned the hand back to sync with the Abbey’s time. Jason took one last puff and passed me on his half-lit cigarette to finish.

“So how are we going to do it” he said as he looked at the abbey.

“We?” I replied. “Are you going to risk your arse with me?”.

“Fuck yeah I am”, he said, “you think I’m gonna miss the fun? Besides I want to see with my eyes what this magic potion bullocks look like”.

“We’ll do it this Sunday evening. There is a special mass comemorating some anniversary of the abbey from when it was partially rebuilt. All the friars will be attending as would most of the usual church-goers in town. We will walk in with the rest of the congregation but stay at the very end. This will give us time to scan and sweep the area for anything suspicious. As the people walk in the door we casually take a right and swiftly hide behind one of the arches. When everyone is in, we will make our way to the cellars and crypt. There is an iron gate that closes off the entrance to the cellars but it is not padlocked. It’s just about removing a small iron rod that holds it closed and giving it a strong push with the shoulder. At least that is how it was when I worked there for a week. Nobody knows about it and the monks assumed that no one will suspect it is actually unlocked. The keys were lost a long time ago and they never changed the gate or its lock”

“Wait hang on a second”, Jason quickly interrupted, “you mean that the monks are hiding something that everyone wants, some magic potion lost in the ages, and they left it in a cellar with an unlocked gate?”

“The monks know nothing of the special cargo in their damp cellars Jas. The monks living at the abbey have nothing to do with the monks in the story. There is no lineage or sect or whatever. The monks that Dr.Keeley was talking about were just maybe two or three doing things in secret that their fellow monks didn’t know about, let alone the poor friars today. I think they have heard of the stories and legends but they are as incredulent as you are. Maybe more.”

“Yeah OK smart ass so what about these secret order of my levantine arse, how is it that they know about everything and everyone and don’t just barge in some old rotting gate themselves?”
“They probably just don’t want to get their hands dirty and use a local nobody like myself to take the bullet. Then they just walk over my corpse and take the bottles.”

“You think they’re gonna kill us?”. I snuffed out the cigarette and looked up at the night sky. “Perhaps”, I said. "I don’t really know what we are up against.”

“Once we reach the cellars we need to work quickly and silently. We have thirty minutes at most. The mass will take around forty minutes and we need to be out there with the stuff before they say amen. There usually are caskets the cook keeps behind the kitchen’s back door. I will go quickly to grab two as you open the gate.”

“Wait, how do we know where the bottles would be hidden?”, Jason getting more excited and anxious with every question.
“They said they will give me clues tomorrow. I will hide some tools with me in the coat. A crowbar, pliers, a small hatchet and chisel perhaps.”

“Thank God we’re working silently” he said with a snarl.

“If we have to use the tools, we’ll do that when there is singing going on. For the rest we’ll just have to play it by the ear.”
Julia suddenly came out of nowhere. We both got startled and turned around then resting our backs on the bridge’s stone wall as non-chalantly as we possibly could. “Play what by the ear?” she asked with half a smile and a long suspicious look at both of us. “I thought I would find you boys here. I followed your smell of booze from the pub all the way to here.” She gave me a cuddle and I smacked a kiss on her lips. “So what are you up to?” she asked.

“Nothing much. Taking a piss and some fresh air before heading home. Got a long day tomorrow and I need to get my head around whether to take on the new job next week. Do you mind if I walk back home alone? Jason will walk you home. He’ll be a good boy I promise.”

The Woman in the Black Car

I kissed her good night and we parted ways walking towards the opposite ends of the bridge. Thoughts were rushing through my head like birds fluttering and pecking around some breadcrumbs in a frenzy. As I finished walking the bridge I saw some headlamps approaching. “Strange”, I thought. A 1947 black Bentley moved slowly past me then stopped at a halt. I felt my heart miss two beats. The first thing that passed through my head was that some high ranking member of the so-called order of the Levantine arch now also want to pass me on a message instead of one of their thugs.

I reluctantly looked back. A man gets out of the driver’s seat dressed up in a full chaffeur outfit. He walked to the other side of the car on the curb always holding his gaze on me. “Good evening Mr. Stark” he politely said in a thin voice as he gently opened the door of the car on the left, “Ms. Wheeler would like to have a word with you if you are kind enough to lend her your ears for five minutes sharp.”

I hesitated for half a minute. I was thinking whether to turn down the offer politely and walk on or go closer to have a peep out of sheer curiosity. I knew there was nowhere to run away to in this town. If they could get hold of my whereabouts anytime, I suppose running away would be a futile task.

I hesitantly approached the car. Sitting on the back seat was this very sophisticated looking woman, dressed in a long green silk dress and a jewelry set that seemed to cost more than the car she was in. She had a fox fur wrapped around her shoulder as if the poor creature had willingly sacrificed its life in the wilderness to cling on to fame, power and wealth.

“Please do come in Mr. Stark. There is nothing to fear. I just want to exchange a few words. Let us drive you home.”
I stepped in still trying to reel in all of it together. The chaffeur closed the door behind me but stayed waiting outside.
“So I trust the fresh night air on the bridge did clear your head on your plans Mr.Stark.”

I looked at her without trying to express any fear or suspicion but my crouched body posture betrayed me. She could immediately sense I was distrustful. She expected it to be so anyway.

“I am not one of them if that is what you are asking. I came to talk to you on my own accord. But I do know that they approached you already and asked you to do the job for them. I have been following their every step which led me to follow yours Mr. Stark.”
I finally broke my silence. “Why the hell is everyone stalking me and claiming to know everything about me. Have I become some public directory or a newspaper at the barber? Everybody seems to be flipping through the pages of my life as they please. You know what? I’m really up to here with all of this. Will you or whoever you are working for get it in your head that I’m just a local guy with a life as interesting as a church candle.”

“Do not belittle yourself Mr.Stark. Your destiny is far greater than this town or your self-esteem. You just can’t see it yet. There are no coincidences in this world and your weren’t picked out with a toss of the coin even if you feel you are being tossed around like one. You are free to leave but please listen to what I have to say first."

"There are things and perils you are still not aware of. You might have heard some things about the brew from the local historian and mythologists but those are just simply anecdotes of the true story. These people who have been threatening you in order to steal the monks’ brew for them have been around for ages. They will not stop at anything and they have their own nefarious agenda. Their main aim is to suppress knowledge and destroy anything that they deem to be conducive to higher knowledge and states of consciousness. In short they want to keep the light away from the darkness. Their contorted cult view sees a world that needs to go through its own darkness before entering the light. They strongly believe it is not yet the time and have their own cosmogony and timelines about when this should happen - when Man is finally able to purge and redeem from all its sins and face the shadow once and for all.”

“What does all this have to do with the monks’ brew in the cellar?” I asked like a child hanging on in anticipation around a campfire story.

“This is where you will start going down a rabbit hole Mr. Stark. The brew is just one of the technologies designed by another race and made to look as if it was something belonging to the time. Basically a hebal tonic or medicine brewed by monks in a monastery. The brew itself is nothing new to this world. Ancient tribes have been using similar consciousness altering brews for millenia. Ever heard of the amazonic Ayahuasca brew for instance? It’s not yet known to us in the west but it’s basically a sacred healing medicine used by natives to have their consciousness travel in higher planes of existence and meet their ancestors, spiritual entities and the sacred. The monk’s brew is quite similar though with some added features. It connects the minds of the people drinking with each other and with the underlying flux of reality, that mystery we call God and other names. It becomes like a growing network of information, God’s network if you like, that acts through those people who have drunk the brew even months after ingesting. This growing network would eventually reach a point where it is unstoppable. A tipping point for the enlightenment and ascension of mankind into its most splendid and authentic form. A new Man, utterly disconnected from his past and co-creating his future in line with God’s Will which is ultimately inseparable from himself. This is why the monk’s brew is such a big threat to the organisation. They are afraid that mankind will reach illumination before its time through the brew. They have been searching and destroying the substance and similar technologies in every pocket of the globe for hundreds of years now.”

My mind was trying to reel in all of it but somehow it kept on hanging on to one thing. “Did you say another race created this? I mean as in another human race or some extraterrestial race?”

“Both. They are one of the many hybrid races - a mix between humans and another species somehwere in our Galaxy that has a keen interest in the evolution of the planet. The hybrids have been living among us for millennia although we know very little of their whereabouts and plans. We know that they live mostly secluded from other main-world humans but sometimes interact with influential people and organisations only when they feel there is a decision that might impact the course of humanity dangerously.”

“So you’re telling me that there are alien bastards and a delusional mastermind organisation playing out some galactic drama in this sleepy town?” I let out a half cynical laugh. “And I thought that the tabloids had shown us all.”

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