Paul's realllly cool novel print it he invented a religion for this.. (also for world domination of course.)

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No other prevarications or introductions about the story apart from a simple statement, yeh - he is more excited about this book than he has ever been about any painting that he has ever done.

By Paul D Robertson

Chapter One

Seroquel

The wind blew his thin regulation shirt against his chest and prickled his skin, chill.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the hardness of the ring on his finger against the cloth, and hunched his shoulders and started across the boards. The wind whipped the sweat on his cheeks to ice, and the sea boomed deep against the pylons beneath him. A few gulls held their wings hard against the cold, their eyes half shut.
He could see the waves between the beams beneath him, twisting through the channel in white coils. His legs ached from the long walk. He felt tired and worn by the small responsibility that he carried, and as at the end of any day, by the boiling twists of his mind and will.
Half way across and he turned away from the keen wounding wind and looked down the channel; deepening cliffs on either side rimmed with bright green grass, fading now in the late sun. Dark soon, but he was close to his destination and could hope for food, military or otherwise it would be hot and most welcome. He walked on.

A red and white boom gate stuck half way down over the road leading to the bridge from Seroquel. Raindrops pattered lightly on his khaki jacket as he walked around the gate booth. He had been about to call out to catch the attention of the guard posted to this unrewarding task when, as he peered towards the grey timber booth he sucked in a cold breath sharply, harshly in surprise.
A black booted foot jutted from the open door.
His glance flicked nervously around him, his full lips taught and bloodless with anxious helplessness.
He didn't have a gun.
Not even a lame girly little one made to nestle in handbags. There was no uncomfortable weight of killing machination against his leg... he was unarmed and once again he regretted it.
He had refused the regulation side arm, saying he would just throw it into the ocean as soon as he had the chance, and because of his… unique position, this had been accepted. He hated guns, feared them, was inept and clumsy with them. He felt like he held a squirming viper every time he picked one up.
Max had left his jeep after it had broken down some eight kilometres of icy road behind him. He was even less skilled with mechanicals than he was with firearms.
The wind blew the door of the booth against the prone man’s boot. He tentatively moved closer.
The guard lay face down, his heavy woollen trench coat twisted about him. Pieces of his chair lay splintered against the booth wall. The man's outstretched hand clasped a black knife. Max briefly wished for a stick, a nice friendly stick, to poke the (obviously dead) body with. He moved closer, though stickless.
Max stood over the guard, his face distressed, puzzled.
He reached down, hesitant, and willed his hand to grasp the shoulder and turn him over. The shoulder was cold. At first the corpse would not move, and Max realised that congealed blood held the private's coat to the floor, and pulled harder. The body flopped onto its side.
He saw a young face under chestnut hair, a face still set in the remnants of a living rage despite having somewhat relaxed into death.
The man’s white shirt was thick with red-brown blood. His revolver remained in its holster, the securing clip still fastened. Grimacing Max reached to take it, noticing as he did the mortal wound the guard had suffered. His hands were bruised and bloody but the sticky redness that soaked the form had issued from a vicious cut, a tearing wound opening the throat to the clavicle. Something had bitten or slashed across the man’s neck with savage intent.
Max reluctantly unclipped the holster and slid the black gun from its place, irresolute. His hand immediately colder as the steel diffused his body heat into the weapon's dense ugly mass. A shiver of discomfort at holding such a weapon raised gooseflesh on Max's pale arm. He let the man fall back down to the sticky floor, stood quickly and tried to control his gasping breath. He leaned against the doorframe, the wood rough under his palms, and fought the nausea that washed across him. The sea air was raw.
He stepped from the booth, pushing the man’s foot inside the door and closing it. His face twisted as he opened the chamber of the revolver and checked that it was full. He tucked it into his belt and the cold of the metal seemed to seep into him, deeper than the wind.
He squeezed his empty left fist. He had just lifted the shoulder of a dead man, and his fingers had held a gun yet again. He stared at his fine boned hand intently before glancing around him and straightening his back against his fatigue. He walked on.
There cloud occluded sunset still left enough light to see the weed choked road, and he climbed the increasing incline with some relief at leaving the dead man behind him.
He would report the murder, make his observances, let the local authorities find out the details… ask them to write him and outline what had happened, though he had his own understanding of what was most likely. War stalked close to these quiet rural islands, hatred simmered in their green hills. This would be another secret and celebrated religious act.

His steps brought him to the top of the first rise leading away from the water and the corpse. The wind spat salt air, and his eyes watered. He sneezed. In the shallow valley before him he could see the outlines of a few scattered houses set back from the road amongst twisting and waving grasses. Making up his mind, he walked on.
Turning off the road at the first house, glad for the shelter of the shallow valley, he realised that none of the homes he could see held lights despite the deep shadows of evening. Nor did the chimneys produce hearth-smoke as the darkness drew cold in its wake. He walked directly to the open front door of the first stone cottage before him and peered intently inside. No sounds besides the soughing of the wind. A child’s tricycle lay overturned beside him. He found his lighter deep in his jacket pocket and sparked it into flame. The heat was weak and small but comforting he drew some comfort from its light.
He leaned inside the cottage door and flicked the light switch, to no effect. Perhaps the storm…
His footsteps sounded hollow upon wood floorboards in the dark home.
The kitchen table was spread with mouldering foods, a half-eaten loaf of bread, a wilted salad. Not too old - two days, perhaps three.
“Hello?” he called. “Is there anybody here?”
Silence. Some dire emergency had made these people leave, and leave with reckless haste.
Perhaps war had come.
Max breathed out slowly and ran a hand through his fine hair.
He closed his eyes, trying not to envisage the horrific progression of violence, as God's mouth sucked down the simple island idyll.
It could be something, anything else.
Yes.
Anything but war.
He searched through the draws in the kitchen, the cupboards, by the yellow flame of his lighter, finding a torch eventually. He took some canned beans, beginning to realise that he may have to be prepared for some kind of disaster.  He flicked the light of the torch through the drawers till he found a can opener and pocketed that too, though he could not imagine being hungry any time soon.
The gun pushed against his belt.
Max was aware with every breath every thought of the heavy cool killing metal against him.
He realised he was deliberately keeping as silent as he could. He scratched his head. His military boots (though painted red) thumped through the rooms of the rooms of the house, and he found more evidence of a sudden departure; beds unmade, chairs overturned. The back door hung from one hinge as though someone had charged through it.
He continued his journey, the night pushing the shadows deeper into the valley.
He called out as he passed the next few houses, but received no response. He tried to remember how far it was from the bridge to the town of Seroquel – he had never been here, but had studied the maps with which he had been furnished like as in any military endeavour. Another fifteen kilometres or so, through some woods. He was now afraid of what he would find. He grieved foolishly for long moments as he noted the freshly planted, brightly painted flowerpots carefully placed at the tiny home's doors and windows. The colours formed a spectrum, a rainbow arcing colour around the smashed back door.

On the road a short distance over the next rise lay a small abandoned truck, its red paint deep in the fading light. Max approached, gun in hand, feeling ill with discomfort at the possibility of ever, EVER having to use it. It hung limply in his pale hand. The truck had stopped at an angle across the muddy road, a door open, and a deep darkness inside the cab. Max switched on the torch he carried in his left hand, switched gun and torch, paused and switched them back again awkwardly before advancing forwards to peer inside. The truck was old and stank with human sweat, and some animal stench, the upholstery cracked, as was the windshield. The handle of the door was twisted from its screws and hung half affixed.
Max flicked the weak beam of the torch around the interior, looking for what he did not know; some clue as to what may have happened; information. A melee weapon may help him – he opened the glove box, looking something to hit people with or stab them. Some kind of sharp farming tool?
He pushed the gun back into his belt and reached his hand down to pat the floor in search of a wheel brace or something like it. He felt his hand push through a dry skin of cold thick liquid before snatching it back. He shone the torch on his hand. The palm was wet with blood. He flicked the beam back onto the floor of the truck’s cab, and gasped, a harsh sound in the night.
The floor was ankle deep in congealed blood.
There was no sign whatever of the driver.
Max became keenly aware that he was standing in an open field with a single light in the night, and the sighing wind sounded criminal and dangerous in his ears. He felt a flush of pure dread tightening the skin on his scalp and balls and hastily wiped his bloody hand on the cracked seat. He made his trembling fingers push the switch on the flashlight to bring back the darkness and walked quickly away from the truck.
He clutched the gun with both hands as he walked on, deliberately trying to slow his panicked breath that steamed into the night. He tried not to look back, but gave up after a few more meters and snapped his head back, seeing only a looming hulk in the darkness behind him.

The landscape changed from open fields to light woods as rain began to fall from the darkness above; light cold drops. Max walked with his hand on the gun in his belt, trying to hold and control the fear squirming, a dark eel alive in his guts.
The temptation to turn on the flashlight filled his mind almost as much as the depth of the shadows moving between the trees.
The road sloped further downward into the shallow valley as Max walked on.
He stopped and turned his head.
He heard… a soft sound almost indistinguishable in the night.
Another.
He took two deep breaths and closed his eyes for a few seconds before walking with deliberation from the road, and into the trees.
Towards the sound.
Closer now with each moment.
“… Shuck…shuck… shuck,” he pushed through the wet trees, the sucking sound twisting in his mind in time with the beats of fear pulsing in his ears. He moved more slowly as the noise grew louder before finally seeing a light through the leaves.
He squinted into a clearing.
A man stood digging a shallow grave in the light of a gas lantern. With what remained of his hair straggling down his face, he wore filthy long underwear. His face twisted in concentration and grief, he stabbed at the sodden soil.
The mound of what could only be a completed, shallow grave separated the figure from Max.
White material – a dress – was draped over the slick fresh mud.
Torn shreds of grasses surrounded the swelling hole in the earth that seemed to suck light from the air.
The forlorn character split the earth wetly once more.
Max drew his gun as the stranger let the shovel fall and bent down to collect something out of his line of sight.
Breathing shallow and fast the scented air, Max stepped from the shadows into the pale light.
He held his gun in two hands in front of him.
“Hey!!” he rasped, his voice loud and uncertain to his own perception.
The man started, and slowly raised his head. His eyebrows sheltered shadows without light.
He stood slowly, a double-barrelled shotgun in one hand.
“Oh, Curse God…” Max moaned.
He could feel only the steel of the pistol and the cold rain on his clenched fingers.
The armed man before him was slumped in despair. Ridiculous in his dirty underwear, inappropriate, absurd. The shotgun was held limply with apathy. 
His slumped figure swayed forwards as his head shook from side to side and then he fixed his attention on the intruder.
Max could now see eyes in the lamplight; bleak and bitter with desolation.
He realised that he had no words to speak aloud at such a scene but his quick mind, aching with questions filled his throat and he found speech almost without volition.
“What… what has been going on here? Where are all the people? What are you doing? Why are you burying someone here?” he held the revolver so tightly that his fingers were starting to go numb.
The empty eyes stared at him now, and the bizarre creature slowly started to speak,
“My daughter, I think I did things to her. I did. I know it.
“I touched her, I hurt her. I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand…
“I was sleeping and I dreamed of this… this…” he began to weep and swayed on his feet, his chest heaving with grief. “I dreamed that I hurt her and then I woke and she was… oh Cursed God, Curse GOD! Oh my sweet girl.
“It doesn’t matter, nothing matters… not now. No… not now…”
He began to choke and he beat his free hand, hard, against his forehead, the rain spraying.
He bent over double, coughing and retching, and vomited gouts of blood down the front of the shirt of his underwear. Gasping, he wrenched himself upright to face Max.
“Whoever you are, why did you come out here? Why did you come all the way to us… now, NOW, at the END!
“You will eat.
“As god eats us all.”
Max gaped in incomprehension, the gun hanging loose in his fingers now.
The pathetic individual, in the lamplight, his underwear sticking to his paunch, his thinning hair wet over his ears, his face a masque of grief, closed his eyes.
He swung the shotgun suddenly as fear surged through Max and he tightened his finger on the pistol trigger; too late, too late.
The shotgun arc swept towards him, for a moment the barrels looked huge as Max squeezed the trigger and realised dismay flooding him and fear cresting in him, that the gun would not fire as he had left the safety on.
With one hand the man swung the glistening weapon to his own chest and fired both barrels.
Max saw his wrist snap at the same instant the barrels blazed and boomed. The shotgun kicking backwards in the man’s outstretched hand as his chest opened red.
He fell.
The rain dripped from Max’s nose.
He blinked against the water in his eyes.
Dully, he moved forward, his boots sucking against the freshly turned mud.
He knelt by the corpse and looked at the eyes, blind and open. The chest wound was massive, and lethal.
He had fallen half into the open grave.
Max lifted his still warm form into the earth.
He closed the nameless man’s eyes. He took the shovel and began to cover him with the soaking mud.

After cursing himself for a fool and getting lost in the sparse woods, Max found his way back to the road. He looked towards the town, and a wave of dizziness and nausea fell over him and he staggered, alone in the night. He bent over and held his head in his hands, his fine blonde hair dripping.  The images of the man’s death flashed through his mind, again, again. He breathed deep gulping torn breaths. He made himself stand upright.
He felt weak and stupid. He knew so little of what was happening; he knew nothing. What kind of bizarre tragedy had afflicted this place? What had happened to the sobbing man before his suicide? What had he done to his daughter? Had he killed her? The images flicked over-bright through his mind again. The twisted face, the wretched grief in his voice.
He pushed his hair back from his face. He was shaking and he was cold. Yes, cold and sick. And exhausted.
He tried to think clearly through the shock and the maddening dripping rain. He peered down the road. Blackness; opaque. He had thought that he would be able to see the lights from the town by now.
He needed rest, and food, he supposed, though his body felt anything but hungry. Max found his hands were curled into claws, and watched as he straightened them finger by finger. He pulled the gun from its cold place at his belt and retrieved the torch from his pocket to examine it. Safety. Click. On. Click. Off. He would not slide it back into his belt, deadly against him, without that small caution, and he practiced his thumb over the switch. The sight of it made him feel a fresh twist of nausea and fear, and he pushed it back into place, shrugging his jacket tighter.
The rain eased, gentle now against him, and he turned his face towards the sky. The clouds hung glowing dull with static and power. He would not sleep here, this night. He believed that with a snap of clarity. His mind cleared with the night.
The tragedy in the clearing, the wet snap of the man’s wrist breaking. He could find one of the empty farm houses and lock the thin doors against the darkness. The man’s body; the first slap of mud over his corpse. He could light a fire, he could… the two graves. Two…
Max walked on. He needed to know, now. Curse God.

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