Night School

The van pulled up in the car park of the large supermarket just outside town. It was past midnight and almost pitch dark, given the lack of streetlight, which had been shut off by the council after eleven as an energy-saving measure. The van was black and unmarked.
  
Its door slid open and five men jumped out, dragging a sixth behind them. They all wore black turtlenecks, jeans, trousers, and trainers, like fascist Blackshirts updated to the 1990s. The sixth was thrust by the scruff of his neck up against the closed door by a man with large upper arms and a permanent, sardonic scowl. 'Where the fuck were you?' asked the inquisitor, though the line as spoken didn't suggest a question mark. His prisoner met his gaze and tried to smile with a certain swagger. 'I told you' he said. 'It wasn't safe. Her sister walked in the room.'  
   
'Then you tell us that, dipshit. Why didn't you contact us?'  
   
'I did contact you. I felt it was safer if I left first.' The inquisitor tightened his fists. One of the others put a hand on his shoulder. 'Leave it, Andy, we've all done it.'  
   
'Done what?' Andy spat, shrugging off the hand and not taking his eyes from his prisoner. 'Fucked up a kill? Which one of us has done that?'  
   
"Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you." This voice came from the van's cab. It was slow and quiet without ever being even slightly less than audible, announcing itself with the authority that comes with an unchallenged, powerful, and respected position. All six heads outside the van turned towards it. 'James, dear boy' it continued. 'What am I quoting?'  
   
'Proverbs' the man being held against the van door replied.  
   
'Chapter and verse?'  
   
'4:6.' The man in the cab smiled, and the men outside knew it. 'Put him down, Andrew' he said. Andy released Jamie and put his hands in the air in the "stick 'em up" gesture. He scowled. 'Whatever you say.' The man in the cab tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He wore black-leather driving gloves and a trilby with a ribbon.  
   
He climbed out of the van and walked around to where his faithful were grouped. Jamie watched him, still irresistibly rapt, even though his faith in the Godhead was more than a little waning these days. The Schoolmaster, as he preferred to be called, moved with a camp theatricality which belied a brutal masculine strength. For a moment Jamie was worried that he'd ask him for the meaning of the lesson, why The Schoolmaster had quoted Proverbs at that particular moment, but of course he didn't. That was one of many reasons why Jamie was drifting away.  
   
He was too far in now, he knew that, and didn't altogether regret it. Although he was beginning to see The Schoolmaster and his pupils for what they were, he still couldn't imagine having done anything else with his life, having made any decision other than to join the man who killed his brother, and saved Jamie from his tyranny. He'd always be grateful to him for that, even when he inevitably ended up serving a several decade prison sentence. Or killed by Andy.  
   
The Schoolmaster was really an ex-philosophy teacher named Simon Clark, who'd lost his job at a sixth-form college over what he referred to as resistance to intellectual suppression, and what the tribunal referred to as an inappropriate relationship with a student. He cut a path through his pupils and ran a gloved finger down Jamie's cheek. His smile gleamed like the blade of a scythe fashioned from bones, or a crescent moon above a cold and lonely world. 'Remind me, young man, were you born to sweet delight, or were you born to endless night?'  
   
Jamie resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Once upon a time, he would have been as awed by this nonsense as the five other pupils, who now stood wide-eyed. Even Andrew, whose perpetual sneer softened for just a moment. It wasn't the first time that Mr Clark had quoted William Blake, and on one occasion he'd sourced the quote incorrectly, claiming that it was from the Bible.  
   
It was the eyes that did it, Jamie realised. He'd recently watched a documentary on YouTube about an American cult from the '90s, UFO worshippers who all committed suicide so that their souls could ascend to Hailey's Comet and be reincarnated in alien bodies. Like Mr Clark, their leader fancied himself a teacher, and though his lessons didn't make much sense, his eyes held an intensity you couldn't ignore. Unlike Mr Clark, he didn't demand human sacrifice of non-cult-members.  
   
'Endless night' Jamie replied, trying to seem overawed, as overawed as he had been when The Schoolmaster thrust a steak knife into Jamie's brother's neck. That was on the promenade, also after midnight. Billy had knocked his brother to the ground, and then, just as he promised, Mr Clark stepped out from behind a wall and slaughtered him. Billy fell, clutching the deep and fatal wound, and Mr Clark placed a boot on his neck. He jerked his foot with the elegance of a dancer.    
   
'I used to kill chickens like that' he said, extending a hand and pulling Jamie to his feet. 'Though the farmer was nice enough to give me a broom.' The connection Jamie felt was electric, romantic, erotic. He fell as blindingly in love with his old sixth-form teacher, then, as Paul the Apostle had with God while on the road to Damascus.  
   
'I'm a child of Endless Night' Jamie continued in the dark car-lot, witnessed by the enormous glass storefront and its rows of tills and aisles.  
   
'Then let's try again tomorrow, shall we?' said The Schoolmaster, and returned to the van.