Prophecy. James Axler

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      “REVELATIONS. THE time of the beast is upon us, and we shall face up to the consequence of all the actions that have led us to this point. The plagues have been sent to teach us the error of our ways and we shall atone. We shall be forced to face up to that which we have perpetrated.

      “And why not, I ask of you? By the Three Kennedys, mankind shall speak to Mother Earth and be forced to account for the way in which she has been raped and violated. She has struck back, at the behest of her—and our—Father, and we shall perish in the flames of her wrath.”

      Doc’s ranting voice, already lost to all hearing in the maelstrom around him, tailed off into a cackle of manic laughter that degenerated into a hawking, coughing fit as dust and locusts clogged his nose and throat. He retched and spit phlegm onto the ground, spattering a frog that strayed too close to his range.

      Rubbing his eyes and looking down, Doc saw the frogs that moved around the toes of his boots, obscuring the ground in a carpet of crawling, leathery skin. Remembering, somewhere in the fevered depths of his imaginings, something he had once read about the hallucinogenic properties of the mucus that oiled the backs of a particular species of frog or toad—he could not recall which, and did not at that moment care to differentiate—he bent to the winds that holed around him and picked up an amphibian from the floor of the plains.

      He lifted the creature and turned it to face him, so that the impassive, dark eyes of the frog met his own.

      “So, my friend,” he said softly, “we find ourselves, both, little more than pawns at the mercy of an unseeing, unfeeling hand. Our destinies are preordained for us as, at this moment, we are witnesses to the greater powers seeking to flex their metaphysical muscles. But why am I bothering to explain this to you, little friend, as you are nothing more than a frog. I wonder what I shall see if I lick your back…by God, it is some time since I was able to say that to anybody, let alone to anything.”

      With which, Doc turned the frog and raised it to his lips. Flicking his tongue out in a manner that was, in itself, reptilian, he licked the back of the creature. It tasted foul. He grimaced, threw the frog to the ground and spit the resulting sputum from his mouth with haste.

      “So much for that,” he muttered. Then he laughed once more and threw his arms wide, beginning to spin in a circle. He threw his head back and began to cackle wildly as he spun, trying to catch the insects, dirt and frogs in his mouth. He wished to drown in the excrescence of the storm. It had come to them as a punishment, so let it punish him. He wished to be claimed by the elements, to be negated and wiped from the earth. If the end times were here, then let him welcome them with these open arms.

      And yet the insects that buzzed around him did not attack, did not fly into his gaping maw. The frogs missed, hitting him on the shoulders and outstretched arms, yet not in the face. The dirt that swirled in the crosscurrents of the storm whipped across his skin, yet did not block his air passages nor settle on his tongue. He wished to be claimed, yet the elements refused.

      Tears of frustration replaced the manic laughter. They coursed down his cheeks, making runnels in the dirt that covered his face. The constant whirling began to make him dizzy, the ground uncertain beneath his feet as his inner ear became confused and his balance became unsteady. The circles he proscribed on the floor of the plain became wider, more elliptic and erratic. He stumbled sideways, felt the ground seemingly move beneath his feet. His outstretched arms windmilled wildly as he tried to keep his balance.

      But it was of little use. One eccentric circle too far, and he found the ground shift beneath his boots just a little too much for him to compensate. Momentum pulled him over, and he found himself falling to the ground, his head still spinning as though he were whirling. Nausea pitched in the pit of his stomach, and he thought that he might vomit.

      It was his last thought before his head cracked against the hard ground, squashing unsuspecting amphibians beneath him, their flimsy skeletons providing no cushion against the hard-packed earth.

      Doc, like Mildred in another place, also lost consciousness.