Don't Fear The Reaper Read Online Free

supermarket earlier, carried all the bags of shopping and unpacked them
when they got home. After that he’d pulled up the weeds sprouting through the
patio slabs in the back yard then drove to Aberavon beach where he and Aida had
some chips and breathed in the sea air.
    Nevertheless, that hadn’t even sounded like a strenuous day. Quite the
opposite in fact. Both productive and enjoyable.
    Being at work five days a week (he was a painter and decorator for the
council)  and coming home to cooking and doing the dishes was tedious and
tiring. In the mornings he’d fix himself and Aida some breakfast, make sure
there was enough food and tea stocked up in the kitchen; that Aida had her Evening
Post and The Sun newspapers. Aida insisted on being in front of the
TV watching Murder, she Wrote and Columbo which were followed by
game shows.
    He’d noticed this feeling of constant drudgery on Tuesday. He couldn’t
afford to put his mother in a care home where she’d receive 24/7 attention.
Also, his mother as demented as she was fast becoming was all he had.
    On Tuesday he’d come home to find his mother pouring scalding hot water
from the kettle into her handbag. When he inquired what the bloody hell she was
doing, she said, “I was doing myself a cuppa tea before I went to Bingo.”
    If it hadn’t been so dangerous Roland might have laughed. Even when he
said, “But why would you pour your tea into your handbag?” to which she
replied, matter-of-factly, “’Cause I couldn’t find a flask,” he couldn’t laugh
about it.
    He retired to bed that night thinking, What the fuck!
    The bed had been made and yielded beneath his weight. Then he closed his
eyes and lay supine, welcoming the comfort of sleep.
    He woke to find himself standing on a narrow road on a steep incline.
When he pivoted he saw he was standing on a road high up in the mountains. His
eyes swept the panorama of a copse of larch trees. Also, this vantage point
permitted him to see how the environing hills were rolled into one. A herd of
sheep were speckled out on the other side of the valley. Roland marvelled at
the sporadic farmhouses; three in total. He wondered how tranquil it must be to
reside in the wilderness, breathing in fresh air, away from the din of the town
centre, main roads and motorways. It was quite literally a different world up
here.
    He vaguely recognised the terrain but couldn’t place it until he looked
out and saw the Crai Reservoir a few hundred feet below. The dying sun sparkled
off the ripples. Two dedicated fishermen were dismantling their rods and
collapsing their tents before hauling their belongings into their vehicles. The
keen motorcyclists were nowhere to be found. The road below was deserted, not a
soul in sight.
    What Roland couldn’t fathom was how he’d managed to arrive here at the
Brecon Beacons without any recollection whatsoever.
    A chill turned his exposed flesh to goose-pimples. Darkness descended in
seconds, dragging the ebbing daylight out of the sky and reigned supreme.
Roland thought it was too fast for it to be natural. Also, the ambience had
dissolved into a sinister atmosphere. If asked to explain this, there would be
no need for some things need no explanation. The sight itself of the black
skies too dark and foreboding to be the work of nature or God swarmed over him,
so that he was mesmerised and fearful beyond comprehension.
    As he pivoted, the presence that did not belong to this world towered
over him. The pale white horse’s impassive gaze appeared to search his mind and
soul. The Grim Reaper stared at him, for how long he didn’t know, from the
chasm of nothingness beyond the hood of its cloak and then reached out and
pointed. And when it performed this gesture, magically white dazzling light
shone the way over the sty and up a steep hill over the brink towards the
summit.
    Roland gazed wonderingly at the light shining down on a path to somewhere
unknown to something unseen. He knew then what was