The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection

by Mark Gillespie

  His back was pressed up tight against the door.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  Jack’s voice was trembling. It was the voice of a frightened kid who didn’t want to play the grown ups game anymore. And was it the fear holding him back from taking that first step towards the stairs or was it the poison mystery gas in his lungs? If the chemical shit was in there doing its thing, how long did he have before his mental faculties turned to mush and his body to wax?

  But to his surprise, when Jack ordered his legs to move they did. He strode, albeit with great hesitation, across the hall towards the stairs. The silence both inside the house and outside on the street was excruciating. There was only the low growl of the car engines outside but that was so constant that Jack barely noticed it anymore. Inside the house, silence was everywhere. The floorboards weren’t even creaking. Usually there would be something going on to indicate life – a dog barking, a kid’s voice yelling, the thump of a basketball bouncing off the street – something, anything.

  Jack stepped onto the spiral staircase. A feeling of tightness pervaded his body. He walked robotically upstairs, stepping onto the upper landing where at last the floor began to make its familiar squeaking noise.

  His eyes never left their bedroom door.

  As Jack crossed the hallway, a cold sensation festered in his guts. He was convinced now that the heavy feeling in his limbs had nothing to do with poison gas.

  He knocked on the door. It was a gentle knock that sounded like a battering ram on a castle door.

  “Mom, Dad?” he said. “Are you in there? Something’s happened outside. Something bad.”

  Jack waited for about five seconds before knocking again. He couldn’t bring himself just to barge into their room even though he knew that’s exactly what he ought to be doing. After the second knock, he stepped back and looked at the door. There wasn’t a blemish on the four white rectangular panels carved on the front. That door in all its perfect glossy glory was representative of the Murray home as a whole – spotless, like a show house.

  He reached for the metal handle. His entire arm was shaking.

  Jack pushed the door open and walked into his mom and dad’s bedroom. His footsteps were loud and intrusive. It was dark inside the room – the drapes were shut. There was also a slight musty odor of morning decay that shot up Jack’s nostrils and made him wince.

  He peered through the greyish-darkness towards the bed.

  Maybe they’d slept in. It was a possibility. They didn’t have to be like everyone else and if Jack had escaped the gas inside the house then why not his parents too?

  There was a blurry upright shape in the center of the bed. It looked like someone sitting tall or perhaps they were crouching on their knees. Something else protruded from the first shape, jutting out at a ninety-degree angle like a swollen mass. There was a head attached to this second shape and it was pushed up tight against the headboard of the bed.

  Jack blinked hard. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at. For all he knew, it was the shadowy outline of a gruesome, conjoined monster.

  “Mom?” he said. “Dad? I think we’re under some kind of attack. You should see what’s going on outside. Open the drapes. Won’t you take a look?”

  No response.

  Jack sighed. His fingers grasped for the light switch on the wall. He ignored the distant, panicky voice inside his head telling him to get out of the room and run. Run as fast as you can, as long as you can.

  Jack switched on the light.

  It wasn’t a monster on the bed. Those strange, threatening shapes over there were his parents and they were waxworks, just like everybody else in the neighborhood. Unlike the people on the street however, Jack’s parents hadn’t been stepping into their cars, taking the garbage out or doing anything as mundane as waiting for the dog to take a shit on the front lawn.

  They’d been having sex.

  Doggy style.

  Jack’s heart was pounding as he took it in. He put a hand to his face, peering at them through the gaps in his fingers.

  His mom was down on all fours and his dad was squeezed up tight behind, his hands gripping her waist with such force that his mom’s pale skin was angry red. Judging by the contorted expression on the old man’s face, Doug Murray had been at the point of no return when the freeze struck. He looked like a bald werewolf howling at the moon.

  Jack’s mom however, didn’t look quite so enthralled. There was a hint of boredom in her eyes that suggested what they were doing was as much a routine chore as wiping down the kitchen countertops.

  “Oh my God,” Jack said, wincing like he’d tasted a piece of rancid fruit.

  He retreated backwards, scraping his shoes off the wooden floor.

  “How could you?”

  The horror of seeing Fiona Murray like that was overwhelming. Fiona Murray, so prim and proper, a woman who wiped down the aforementioned kitchen countertops at least three or four times a day religiously – to see her like this, like an object being used by his dad, it was horrifying.

  And that wild-eyed look on Doug Murray’s face.

  Jack’s fingers scrambled for the wall. He turned the light off and plunged the room into darkness. Likewise, he tried to erase the image from his mind. Unfortunately there was no light switch for that.

  “What’s happening?” he said. “This is like a nightmare that keeps getting worse. What am I supposed to do?”

  He stared at the dark shape on the bed, two people stuck together like giant lumps of modeling clay.

  Jack crept forward again. He didn’t want to inhale that aroma of morning decay or anything else in the room for that matter, so he started breathing through his mouth like he did when his nose was blocked up with the cold. It was no good – he could still taste it.

  “Dad?” he said. “Can you hear me? Mom?”

  “Armageddon,” he whispered. “Or whatever they call it on TV. I think it’s happening right now. There’s been some kind of attack but it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Dad? Mom? Can you hear me?”

  Jack reached a finger towards his father. A chink of light crept past the drapes and in the glow of that solitary white beam, it was obvious that Doug Murray’s body was glistening with sweat.

  Jack tapped a finger off his dad’s shoulder. He felt that same rubbery hardness on the skin, the same sensation that he’d felt on Mrs Lancaster earlier. They looked real but they didn’t feel it.

  “Dad,” he said, leaning in closer. “Are you in there?”

  He pushed on his dad’s arm again, just below the elbow. His parents wobbled gently on the bed as one.

  “Speak to me for God’s sake!” Jack yelled. His heart was pounding. His skin felt hot and prickly. “I don’t know what to do here. I’m all alone and I need help.”

  He pushed the old man again but harder this time. Much harder. To Jack’s horror, his dad tipped over at the side and because his parents were still attached at the groin, his mom went with him. Jack shrieked as Doug and Fiona toppled off the edge of the bed and crashed onto the floor with a thud that shook the house to its core.

  Jack staggered backwards, his face buried in his hands. He only stopped moving when his back was pressed up against the bedroom wall.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his hands. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  He was breathing hard now through his nose and mouth. That musty odor in the air was making him feel sick.

  As Jack stood there he noticed the TV remote sitting on his mom’s bedside drawer. That’s where it always was – it was his mom that was in charge of the late night channel surfing.

  There was a faint glimmer of hope in Jack’s mind.

  TV. The news. There had to be something on the news about this.

  He scurried over to the side of the bed, grabbed the remote and retreated back to the safety of the wall.

  Jack pointed the remote at the flat screen TV, which was attached to the wall opposite the bed. He pushed the power button se
veral times. Nothing happened. Jack made an angry noise like an animal growling. He ran over to the TV, ignoring the crumpled heap of flesh lying on the floor nearby.

  With a frantic stabbing motion, his finger searched for the manual button at the side of the thirty-two inch screen TV. When he found it, he pushed it down and held it in place.

  Nothing. There was no power.

  Jack yelled and threw the remote off the wall. The gadget split open and landed in several pieces near the wreckage of his parents. Jack hurried over to the window next and pulled back the drapes in a haze of fury. He blinked as a barrage of daylight flooded the room. He looked up at the pale blue sky, certain that the sonic boom of jets was imminent, as was the sound of bombs crashing into cities and towns all across Oregon. Black clouds of smoke would appear on the horizon.

  Any minute now.

  The world was at war.

  “We’re under attack!” Jack yelled. His hands were clamped to the sides of his head. His mind was drowning in a sea of panic.

  “It’s happening for God’s sake, somebody do something.”

  Jack sniffed at the air again, certain that same metallic odor that he’d smelled outside was following him. His eyes darted back and forth across the room. Of course it was, look at his parents for God’s sake. But why hadn’t he ended up like the rest of them? Was the paralysis on its way? Was he immune? If he was immune there had to be something inside Jack that was different. Biology? Freak luck? He’d heard of people who were naturally immune to killer diseases but to chemical gas attacks?

  Jack grabbed a Kleenex out of a box on the chest of drawers. He clamped it over his nose and mouth and tried to slow his breathing down. He staggered across the bedroom. He didn’t feel great.

  Were his limbs heavy? Or was he just imagining it?

  DING-DONG!

  Jack’s jaw dropped. The Kleenex fell out of his hand.

  The doorbell.

  “I’m coming!” he yelled.

  Jack almost toppled over the bed as he ran out of the bedroom. He hit the stairs hard, his legs pounding off the wood with such force that it sounded like an elephant was running around the house. There was only one thought in Jack’s mind – he was saved! It had to be the police checking door-to-door, looking for survivors to escort towards an evacuation site.

  Maybe it was the army.

  What did it matter? He wasn’t alone.

  Thank God.

  Jack almost tripped on the bottom step but he didn’t let that slow him down. He landed on the downstairs hallway and charged towards the front door. His hands, shaking violently, grasped for the handle.

  “I’m coming!” Jack cried out. “Don’t go anywhere please. I’m coming!”

  He pulled the door open and his eyes bulged with horror.

  There was no one there.

  Chapter 3

  Jack staggered down the driveway and onto the street. He looked back and forth, searching for something – anything – that was moving. There had to be someone out there.

  Doorbells don’t ring by themselves.

  “Hello!” he yelled. “Somebody help me. I’m here!”

  His mind went around in circles, trying to makes sense of it. There was fear and confusion but also anger inside Jack’s head. Why was this happening to him? He glared at the neighborhood scenery – at the waxworks that didn’t seem to be either living or dead. He put a hand to his face – his skin was damp and it felt like it was burning off in large chunks. Was it panic sweats or something else?

  “Is anyone there?” Jack yelled above a chorus of ticking car engines.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the Murray residence with its two cars sitting neatly in the driveway. It felt like he was looking at a haunted house and not the place he’d called home for the vast majority of his life. It was a dead place, leering back at him with evil intentions – a dilapidated site of local legend where kids dared each other to knock on the door three times before running away.

  It wasn’t a safe place anymore. He couldn’t ever go back in there, not until this was fixed.

  Jack looked at the upper left bedroom window – his parents’ room. It sent a chill down his spine.

  “What now?” he said, turning back to the waxworks on the street. “What am I supposed to do?”

  He tilted his head back, searching for that strange, foreign smell. He couldn’t find it. But if it was there, maybe the best thing to do was just take a deep breath, lap it up and absorb whatever chemicals were in the air. Let everything stop. Become a waxwork like the rest of them.

  Jack shook his head. No, he couldn’t give up. If he was immune then he was obliged to find answers and maybe along with those answers, there was a chance he could bring these people – including his parents – back.

  There had to be someone else out there like him. He just had to find them.

  Jack walked down the street, eyeing the waxworks warily. Once or twice he glanced towards the sky, waiting for something to happen. Surely it was only a matter of time now before signs of the war reached the Oregon skies. The next stage of the attack would come. The release of the paralysis-inducing chemical was stage one, rendering Americans everywhere helpless and wide open for stage two. But what was stage two? Would Jack hear the growl of tank engines before too long, followed by rapid bursts of machine-gun fire ripping the world he knew to pieces?

  One thing was for sure – Jack wasn’t worried about being late for school anymore.

  He took a left turn onto Clair Avenue.

  As he traveled towards the town center, Jack broke into the occasional light run. He was impatient to see someone else moving – to see something normal on the horizon. It only made sense that other people had survived the big freeze. It was just a matter of catching up with them.

  Beautiful old houses went past in a blur. That same homely charm, the ultra-normality of Alexandra Falls, was the secret ingredient of terror that made the current situation so creepy. If this was indeed the apocalypse then it was a quiet, almost civilized one. Where was all the noise? Wouldn’t it be better if the town had gone up in flames? Wouldn’t it make more sense if hundreds of people were running about the blood-soaked streets screaming and clawing at their burning faces? At least Jack could understand it.

  Not this.

  “Can anyone hear me?” Jack called out. He was looking at the houses on either side of the street.

  Jack walked past a blue pickup and a white taxicab parked tight to the curb. The cab was empty but there was a young twenty-something man sitting behind the wheel of the pickup. He’d frozen just as he was about to take a big bite out of a bread roll. His face was mapped with wrinkles as his teeth clamped down around the edge of his food. His eyes stared straight ahead, expressionless.

  Jack kept calling for help but no one answered. He passed by a multitude of neat lawns and quiet houses on both sides. Once or twice, he saw the occasional face peering out of a front window and his heart leapt at the thought that these people were like him, unaffected by the freeze. Each time he bounded over the lawn to the window but upon closer inspection, Jack saw that they were like everyone else.

  Waxworks.

  It’d be okay, he told himself. Get to the town center. There’d be others like him there.

  Jack ran past the church, his feet stomping off the litter-free streets. He could hear the sound of car engines running and at the next crossroads, Jack saw a long pile-up of vehicles stretching back about fifty feet. All the cars were pushed up tight against each other, the blockage starting with the leader, a tan Ford with a middle-aged woman behind the wheel.

  Jack didn’t hang around. He ran downhill, closing in on Main Street. He passed more kids and adults on the sidewalk – all frozen in the middle of the school run.

  About a minute later, he was in the town center at last. Jack doubled over, his hands resting on his thighs while he caught his breath. He took in the scenery, desperate for a glimpse of life – moving life. The first person Jack sa
w was the familiar face of a crossing guard standing in the middle of the road. She was a portly black woman with a beautiful smile that stretched from ear to ear. When the freeze hit, she’d been assisting a small group of smiling kids and a handful of adults across Main Street.

  “Hi Jane,” Jack said, waving at her. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen anyone moving around here lately, huh?”

  Jack straightened up and kept walking. His eyes searched frantically for something to get excited about. Police, army – adults of any kind would do at this stage. Damn, even a kid or two – something to let Jack know that he wasn’t the only human being in Alexandra Falls that hadn’t turned into a waxwork.

  Of course he wasn’t the only one. That was ridiculous.

  He approached a gray-haired man in a checked shirt and baseball cap. The man was standing at an ATM and he’d been taking money out of the machine when the big freeze hit. Jack moved closer and saw a fat pile of green notes trapped in the man’s fingers. He felt a strange, alien sensation rising up inside him. It was like a fever. A rush of excitement went through Jack – his heart was beating so fast that he imagined the blood bubbling in his veins like boiling water.

  That was a lot of money. And surely the man didn’t need it anymore?

  Jack looked around, checking to see if anyone was watching. He took a step closer to the ATM. Who would care if he took the money out of the man’s stone-like hands?

  Who would know?

  Jack halted his approach. He shook his head, like he was trying to get a fly out of his hair. What the hell was he thinking? Was he really going to steal all that money?

  He urged his legs to move. Without looking at the man or the cash again, he walked away quickly.

  It was the morning rush hour in Alexandra Falls – this was as busy as it got during the weekdays, along with the half-five to half-six in the evening stretch when everyone was coming back from Portland or wherever it was they worked.

  There were more cars piled up in the distance. Most of the vehicles had plowed into one another when the freeze happened. Some however, had rolled onto the sidewalk and into shop fronts or other buildings. There were a few waxworks lying on the concrete like fallen bowling pins, which suggested they’d been in the way at the unfortunate moment.