This was me.
Now he’s gone.
Aalia screams and runs out the bedroom window into the night.
I chase after her.
I chase her through a field of corn, which always points me in the right direction. I chase her through ancient ruins, and the symbols on the stones transform into arrows. She’s betrayed at every turn.
There is no escape.
I corner her in a room without any windows or doors.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says, crying.
“I won’t,” I want to say, but I don’t believe that. I’ve done much worse.
The cloud of dark power around me seizes her as I approach. It grips and strangles and squeezes her mind.
I tower over her, not myself, but her husband. Her father. Whoever I am, I’m going to destroy her.
I touch her.
She screams and punches me in the gut. Hard.
I fly backwards, crashing and tumbling through wall after wall. Artifacts and corn whirl around me. They nip at my skin. When this world stops spinning, I’m back in the hallway and I have one hell of a stomachache.
I think of probiotics and chamomile tea. Then I don’t.
“Sorry,” Jade says. “I didn’t know Aalia had that in her. No, that’s not true. I knew it was there, I just didn’t know she’d let it out yet. Anyway. Good job. She may leave him now in the waking.”
I lift my shirt. My stomach expands and contorts into the shape of a hairbrush.
“What is this?” I say.
Jade kneels and pats my stomach. I yelp with pain. “It’s sort of a difficult thing to put into words,” she says. “At least for me. But what I can tell you is that the gap between you and Aalia, between your feelings and hers, is just an illusion. I create these illusions, so I know what I’m talking about.”
I try vomiting, but I can’t. “Are you going to take it out?”
“What’s inside you is real, Tomas. It’s yours to deal with. But I can help you.”
A door opens.
I glance at my son through the rearview mirror. He chomps the head off a marshmallow chicken.
“Marshmallows used to be a medicine, you know,” I say. “This was back when they added an extraction of the marsh mallow plant to the ingredients. Marsh mallow juice is great at healing wounds, boosting the immune system, and suppressing coughs.”
“It tastes good,” my son says.
I smile and look at my wife, like I often do when I smile. But she’s asleep. Her hands rest on her lap, gripping a hairbrush. I smile again and turn my attention to the road.
A lost kitten poster flutters on a streetlight up ahead. I stare.
Suddenly, a chthonic force seizes me and squeezes my chest.
The voice says, “You are doomed.”
I am doomed.
Fear closes in on me from all angles.
The light is red, but I can’t move. My right foot remains pressed against the pedal.
It may look like I’m in control, but I’m not. I’m helpless.
“Stop doing this to me, Jade,” I say.
“Don’t blame me,” Jade says, sitting in the back seat with my son.
This is how it happens. These are the moments before the truck hits. These are the moments that last an eternity.
“Why did I go through the light?” I say, crying, frozen. “Why didn’t I stop?”
“Because you weren’t paying attention,” Jade says. “You were looking at that poster, thinking about your childhood cat, Snappy.”
“Should they die for such a little mistake?”
“No. But they did. They will again if you keep this up.”
“I don’t know how to stop!”
“You can’t stop.”
There is no escape.
I see the presence in the approaching truck. He’s the shadow of a man. A void that I created because I didn’t know how to stop.
Now I do.
I slam on the breaks, and the truck comes to a screeching stop, just in time to avoid hitting my car, my family, and me.
I’m back in my car now, driving, safe.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ve been away for so long.”
My wife laughs. “We’ve seen you every night, Tomas.”
Jade touches the back of my head. I remember. My wife is right. I’ve dreamt of them hundreds of times since they left the world.
I want to say, “I love you,” but for now I vomit out the window, and leave a trail of green behind us. A green that eats away at the asphalt and seeps deep into the ground.
That was me.
Now he’s gone.
About the Author
Jeremy C. Shipp is an author whose written creations inhabit various magazines, anthologies, and drawers. These publications include the likes of Flesh and Blood, Deep Outside SFFH, ChiZine, Until Somebody Loses an Eye, and Darkness Rising. While preparing for the forthcoming collapse of civilization, Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse. He's currently working on many stories and novels and is losing his hair, though not because of the ghosts. Vacation, his first published novel, was released earlier this year from Raw Dog Screaming Press. You can visit his online home at http://www.hauntedhousedressing.com.
Reviews
Dalek Empire: The Fearless, part 1
Written and Directed by Nicholas Briggs
Starring: Noel Clarke, Maureen O’Brien
Big Finish Productions, £10.99, Oct ‘07
The Big Finish productions are among the best that genre audio has to offer. Their Doctor Who license allows them, not only to produce some superb Doctor Who audio, but to produce audio adventures set in the Who universe, but without the presence of our favourite Timelord.
Dalek Empire is one such production. The Fearless, part 1 is a single-disc audio drama lasting approximately one hour. The production values – as ever – are excellent, and the storyline, while not being particularly adventurous or original, is handled competently. The Press Release for this production states:
“The Daleks are conquering our galaxy. Nothing can stop them. But Commander Agnes Landen has an idea.
On the outer planet Talis Minor, Salus Kade is struggling to keep his colony alive. The last thing he needs is a war to fight”.
That pretty much sums up the episode, and nothing much actually happens. As the first disc of a multi-disc release, this would have been a decent introduction to the story, but as a single-disc release, it’s a struggle to justify its £11 price-tag. It’s not a bad production (there are surprisingly few of those at Big Finish) – it’s just too lacking in plot to recommend it.
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Hub - Issue 29 Page 2