Copyright © 2020 by Peter Jay Black
* * *
The right of Peter Jay Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
* * *
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or transmitted into any retrieval system, in any form on, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, brands, titles, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Depictions of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and any other forms of life-saving contained within this novel are strictly fictionalised and not intended in any way to represent real techniques and/or advise.
* * *
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
* * *
OAKBRIDGE
PB ISBN 978 1 8380 5350 5
13GS08ARC20
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
* * *
*Note to the reader*
This work is a mid-Atlantic edit.
A considered style choice of both British and American spelling, grammar, and terms usage.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Updated
Further Work
One
I thought I’d be at least twenty years old before I met an alien. So you can imagine my surprise when two days after my sixteenth birthday, not only had I seen several, but my first physical encounter started with a cyborg attempting to tear my head off and throw me out of an airlock.
Wait.
Let me rewind this a minute and give you some context.
Hi, I’m Leonardo Cooper. Leo.
I am of average height and build, average looking with dark hair and blue eyes, have an average life—school, hanging out with my mates, and getting average grades—Bs and Cs, mainly.
Dad is a British Royal Air Force pilot, and Mum is an American cardiothoracic surgeon.
I was adopted.
We spent the first fifteen years of my existence in London, England, until my father received a job offer he couldn’t refuse—test pilot in the private space industry, based out of New Mexico, USA, with other training facilities scattered around the country.
He was going to be a freaking astronaut.
How amazing is that?
My parents made a big show of umming and ahing, going into deep discussions regarding the culture shock to my system.
Hey, I knew all about Bob Ross and Selena Gomez. Concerning American culture, I was set.
They also expressed their anxiety about the extreme and everlasting impact on my education.
Ha.
Needless to say, Dad accepted the offer.
Now my father was the new Rocketman in the family. Commuting wasn’t a problem for him due to being able to fly himself across the country, so we could choose to live anywhere in America. All forty-eight lower states. Sorry, Alaska and Hawaii, no British invasion for you.
Of course, my parents vetoed every one of my amazing suggestions. Gone were New York City, Vegas, and San Francisco. Boston? Too busy. Miami? Too hot. Los Angeles? Too . . . well, too everything.
Want to guess the final choice?
This was a two-to-one vote, by the way.
Silverthorne, Colorado.
I know, right? I’d never heard of it either.
Sigh.
This wasn’t a random, throw-a-dart-at-a-map-of-the-USA type of situation. No, there was a definite method to my parents’ madness.
What made Silverthorne their target?
My one and only remaining grandparent lived there and—rather conveniently, I might add—owned a large plot of land, complete with a six-bedroom family lodge.
Mum had convinced her father to visit London on two previous occasions. The first was before I was born, and the second time I was only three. I had no memory of the guy, but was looking forward to being part of his life. My parents had no other relatives, so I couldn’t wait for us to extend our family.
Meanwhile, my mother emailed the nearest major hospital outside Silverthorne—St Anthony—explaining her background, her vast credentials and experience, yadda, yadda, yadda. Thirty-seven seconds later—I know, I timed it—she had a job offer.
Despite repeated attempts to convince Mum and Dad to leave me in London with my friends, we packed up our stuff a month later, gave what we didn’t want to charity, and donated Gavin the hamster to our neighbour. He was a vicious little sod, and America would not have suited his blood-sucking lifestyle.
Gavin, that is, not the neighbour.
Laden with several suitcases each—plus Milo, a dopey Pekingese—our family of four embarked on an adventure to the land of the free and home of the Braves. Or whatever.
We travelled Economy Class, thanks to my parents’ determination not to waste a single penny on anything remotely comfortable or frivolous, and our beloved dog journeyed in the baggage hold.
With the flight akin to sitting on a bouncy castle full of hyperactive children for ten hours, I was thankful I’d taken motion sickness tablets.
Once we got to Denver, the three of us collected a shell-shocked Milo—who looked as though the crew had left the cargo door open for the entire journey—and traipsed off to claim our hire car.
Fifty thousand insurance forms later, we bundled our worldly belongings into a battered-looking SUV with manual—I repeat, manual—window winders and a tape deck from the fifteenth century.
I climbed into the back seat with wonky-eyed Milo, who stank of vanilla and lavender. Seriously, what the hell had they fed him? An air freshener?
My father tried to get into the wrong side of the car.
I laughed. “Not a great start, Dad.”
“Shut up.”
And off we went.
Denver International Airport was like you’d expect—lots of concrete and those loud, pointy, wingy things my father’s so fond of.
Driving away, everything looked flat and uninteresting for a while,
but that changed as we wound through the hills, headed up a never-ending incline.
Next came trees and snow, like someone increasing the draw distance in a video game, adding more detail until a vast evergreen forest flanked us on one side, crumbling rock faces on the other, and then rivers, lakes, and . . . mountains.
For the record, and contrary to popular belief, we do have mountains in the United Kingdom—Ben Nevis and Snowdon to name two. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice, perfectly respectable in every way, but the Colorado mountains are incredible, seeming to stand several magnitudes taller, scraping the sky like . . . well, like a Bob Ross painting.
Yep, Colorado is full of happy little trees and a landscape to die for.
We pulled off the main highway, heading down a decline into Silverthorne itself, where everything was conveniently close, but far enough apart to still feel spacious.
I spotted a coffee shop, steakhouse, and several fast-food restaurants, making a mental note of each of their locations and hoping my grandfather’s house was within waddling distance.
Dad continued along the main road, checking a prehistoric GPS from time to time. Five minutes later, we took a sudden—I swear he almost missed it—sharp turn to the right and dove across a steel bridge spanning a river.
From there, we followed a narrow, winding, and occasionally life-threatening trail into the hills, climbing higher and higher until . . . there it was.
My mouth dropped open so far that my chin almost hit my lap, and even Milo managed to focus both of his wayward eyes on the structure before us.
Granddad’s lodge had to be the most impressive building I’d ever seen. Being from London, I’d had no shortage of architecture in my life, but this was something else, formed of cut logs, slate, and angles.
A porch held aloft by wooden pillars and trusses spanned the entire frontage, overhanging rows of sash windows and rocking chairs, all designed to create a warm invitation.
Several stone chimneys jutted from the various rooftops, the largest of which sent a column of bluish-grey smoke skyward.
We stayed motionless in the car, holding our breaths, no one daring to be the first to disturb the calm, magnificent scene.
Milo let out a wet snort.
“He needs to pee,” I said, making sure reality was well and truly back in family Cooper’s lives.
We disembarked from the SUV like grateful pilgrims stepping from the Mayflower.
I set the Pekingese down, facing him toward the forest. Then, spreading my arms wide, I declared in a loud, clear voice, “Be free, Milo. Return to the wilderness from whence you came.” I wiped a mock tear from my eye as he toddled off.
Yet instead of joining the other animals for an exhilarating life jam-packed with wild adventure, Milo huffed and puffed his way back to the SUV and cocked a leg, relieving himself on a rear wheel.
Mum rolled her eyes, knocked on the lodge’s front door, and opened it. “Dad?”
If I’d thought the outside was amazing, nothing had prepared me for the interior.
The sitting room was bigger than our entire three-bedroom apartment back in sunny England. It had high ceilings with natural wood beams, and several squashy-looking sofas and chairs covered in blankets. A fireplace dominated the far wall, flames crackling in the hearth.
I inhaled the scents of pine and old leather.
Heaven.
A side door creaked open, and a stocky man with flyaway hair and a salt-and-pepper beard stepped through. Deep lines weathered his forehead, and he wore a flannel shirt, dark jeans, and hiking boots. When he spotted us, a crooked, welcoming smile spread across his face, wrinkling the corners of his eyes.
“Dad.” Mum rushed over and they embraced.
“Glad you arrived safely,” he said in a gravelly voice.
Mum grinned at him. “You look well.”
He nodded.
My father strode over, thrust out a hand, and they shook, exchanging pleasantries.
Then it was my turn.
“Hi, Granddad.” I beamed and offered a hand too, but the old guy drew me into a bear hug and thumped my back.
“Good to meet ya again, kid,” he said. “Call me Grandpa John.”
My smile spread so wide my cheeks hurt. Our family had just expanded by an extra thirty percent—not including Milo—and I couldn’t wait to get to know my grandfather.
Speaking of Milo, he huffed, puffed, and snorted his way through the open door. I guessed he was too institutionalised to make a break for freedom.
Grandpa John cocked a bushy eyebrow at the odd-looking, snuffling purebred. “Looks like the coyotes have a new snack.” He pronounced the word ky-oats.
I chuckled.
Yeah, I was going to like Grandpa John.
I was going to like Grandpa John a lot.
Dad and I brought in our belongings while Mum and Grandpa prepared dinner, chatting about the past, with my mother asking if so-and-so was still alive and saying how overcrowded Silverthorne looked these days.
Overcrowded? Was she insane? The woman had just moved from London, the absolute definition of the word.
Grandpa John showed us to our rooms.
My bedroom was at the far end of a long corridor, behind a whitewashed wooden door with a grandfather clock next to it.
The room itself was many times larger than my shoebox back in London. It had a king-sized bed, a walk-in closet, en suite bathroom, and French doors leading to a veranda with a view of more forest and mountains.
A classic movie poster hung above a desk—The Seven Year Itch, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, and Evelyn Keyes.
I sighed as I set my cases on the floor.
“What’s the verdict?” Grandpa John asked.
I shrugged. “Yeah, guess it’ll do.” And beamed at him.
My gaze drifted to a silver-framed photo on the desk, an image of a young woman holding a baby. Grandma Alice.
I stared at her.
She had beautiful long dark hair, and a tall, slender physique. I could see my mother’s likeness in the shape of her jawline, the way her ears stuck out slightly, and her pinched nose.
Mum rarely talked about her mother. Grandma Alice died way before I was born, and my grandfather had lived alone ever since.
Grandpa John plucked the frame from the desk, clutched it to his chest, and gave me a crooked smile. “Best get you fed.”
Back in the kitchen, we ate a dinner of steak, chips—sorry, I mean fries—and peas, followed by shovelfuls of pecan pie. As we sat by the fire afterward, bellies full, laughing and telling stories, I decided this would officially be the best place to live in the entire universe.
Happy days.
Two
Ugh.
Two weeks in and I was going out of my damn mind.
B.O.R.E.D.
Although I was happy to move from the endless bustle of a city to calm wilderness and the lodge, I missed my friends.
We received a letter explaining I wasn’t able to start school for another six months. An eternity. My grandfather had filled out the school form incorrectly. He’d gotten my age wrong, along with the date I was supposed to start. He apologised for his mistake every time I bumped into him, which was rarely.
I’m not sure where Grandpa John wandered off to. The only time I saw him was at breakfast, then he’d vanish. Like, literally vanish. I’d even thought of following him a few times, but the old guy was like a ninja—here one second and nothing but a memory the next.
At first, I thought he was off hunting somewhere, but he never left with a gun or returned with a bleeding carcass. The only way I knew my grandfather had been around was by finding a coffee mug on the side or the odd item or book in the sitting room moved out of place, but that was it.
To make matters a billion times worse, my parents were at work during the day, sometimes not coming home until the small hours of the morning, if at all. On the rare occasions I did see Mum and Dad, they looked exhausted, so my vigorous and heart
felt complaints had no effect.
“Please come home more,” I said one evening as they both sat at the kitchen table, slowly munching on a reheated lasagne with the enthusiasm of cows chewing their cud.
“Leo,” Dad said in a worn-out voice. “We both have important jobs. You knew this would happen.”
I frowned at him. “No, I didn’t. You said it would be amazing moving here. That we’d have plenty of extra time together, not less. That I’d make loads more friends than I had in London, not zero.”
“You will make friends,” Mum said in an equally low drone. “When you start school.”
“That’s months away. What am I supposed to do until then?” I shook my head. “Look, Mum, can’t you get a job at a hospital nearer the lodge?”
She shrugged.
And from that moment on, each moan and rant passed through my parents as though they were mindless ghosts, only getting the odd grunt or “mmmhmm” in reply.
Infuriating.
So much for being a new, extended family.
I wanted Mum and Dad home so we could do things together—chat, play games and visit places with Grandpa John. No matter what I tried, or how much I pleaded—even threatening to join a biker gang—they were too tired and irritable to see sense.
Not what I’d imagined.
GAME SPACE - Full Novel Page 1