This – all of this, might be part of a hallucination.
What if I’m dying right now? I think I’m sitting here in a field but what if I’m flat on my back at home? Or in hospital? What if I’m suffering from respiratory failure, coughing, wheezing, my lungs drowning in the effects of a deadly chemical cocktail?
For real?
Jack looked up. Damn it, too far-fetched. But although he wanted to scrub it out and dismiss the idea completely he didn’t.
It wasn’t likely.
But it was possible.
He turned back to the sheet of paper on his legs.
After the chemical attack theory, I considered the possibility of aliens – of alien invasion.
Too weird?
Can anything be too weird anymore?
This is still possible, probable in fact. Nothing on Earth (THAT I KNOW OF!) can do that to people – make them one hundred percent paralyzed like that.
Jack stopped writing. His body stiffened and he glanced over his shoulder towards the road.
Was that a noise?
He took a look around but there was nothing there. His eyes scoured the empty hills for a minute before turning back to the paper.
Chemical weapons or aliens.
A combination of the two is the most likely scenario. Whatever otherworldly power did this to us – they’re using a type of weapon that we can’t understand. America, Russia, North Korea – none of us can hope to…
Jack stared at the words on the page.
“This is horseshit,” he said.
He crumpled the sheet of paper up and tore it into dozens of tiny pieces. With a deft flick of the wrist, Jack threw the shreds away and watched them fall to the grass like snowflakes.
Wild guesses.
“I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on,” Jack said, staring into the distance. “Why don’t I write that down?”
He sat there for a couple of minutes, his fists tightly clenched. After a long silence, he picked up a spare sheet of paper off the grass and turned it around to start a fresh page.
YOU’RE LOSING YOUR MIND.
That’s the answer Jackie boy.
Here’s why…
Donna was NOT conscious in her body. And yet I heard her voice. It was her voice, no mistake about it. But there’s no way I just had a conversation with my waxwork girlfriend in Room 11. Think about it. What’s more likely? That Donna is buried alive inside her body? Or that I was crazy and delirious after being shot at by a KILLER ROBOT? It’s obvious now – I was talking to myself.
He looked back towards the school.
“But am I still crazy?” Jack said. “Have I been crazy all along?”
There was a light crunching noise at his feet.
Jack was startled at first. Then he saw a small, roundish brown object scurrying across the grass in front of him. It was a field mouse.
The mouse stopped and turned to face Jack. It stood up on its back feet, bringing the front two together as if praying to the human boy like he was some kind of field mouse god.
“Hi,” Jack said. “How’s it going down there?”
It was a thrill to see something moving. Especially something that wasn’t trying to kill him.
The mouse didn’t appear to be frightened of Jack. It stayed where it was, looking at him with its two button eyes. It sniffed at the air, which caused its long whiskers to shudder.
Jack didn’t move. He didn’t want to scare it off.
“Have I gone crazy Mister Mouse?” he said. Jack looked up at the sky – the scant wispy clouds were moving on, leaving behind a naked blue roof over the fields and hills. It was shaping up to be a pleasant spring afternoon in Alexandra Falls.
“Because that’s the latest theory,” Jack said. “You know something? The more I think about it, the more being crazy is the only thing that makes sense.”
Jack laughed softly.
“If I am crazy,” he said, “and all this is in my head, then there’s no reason you can’t talk either is there? If Donna the waxwork can talk then surely I can make anyone talk, right? Even you Mister Mouse. So go on, say something why don’t you? Tell me what’s going on in your life?”
The mouse kept sniffing at the air.
Jack leaned his head forward. Slowly, so he didn’t frighten the tiny creature away. After all, this was his only friend in the world.
“I’ll give you something to eat,” he said. “Just one word and I’ll dish out the feast of a lifetime right here.”
It didn’t matter that Jack didn’t have anything to eat. He was pretty sure he could get away with lying to a field mouse.
The mouse lowered onto all fours. With a final sniff, it turned away from Jack and scurried off through the grass.
Jack watched it disappear. He was alone again.
He fell back onto the grass and looked up at the sky. As Jack listened to the constant chatter of birdsong, he began to realize how lucky he’d been in life so far. From his birth to his teenage years, Jack’s parents had given him everything he’d ever needed, both in terms of love and affection, and material things.
He’d never known hardship. Now it felt like the bottom had dropped out of his world.
“Are you up there God?” he said. “Or are you frozen too? I could use some help right now because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Do I leave town like I planned? Do I stay and try to make sense of this here in Ally Falls? Is that even possible? And if I’m crazy or hallucinating, does it even matter?”
Jack sat up. The first thing he did was look for the mouse.
“Hey come back,” he called out. “It’s kind of lonely here in Crazyville. I promise if you come back I’ll…”
Jack was cut off by a crunching noise in the distance.
He spun around, looking back towards the road.
“Jesus Christ!” he said.
The robot shooter was walking down the road. It was coming after him, that exaggerated, alien stride covering the ground slowly. The AR-15 rifle was in its hands and pointing at the Honda Civic, which was parked about a hundred meters away.
Jack jumped to his feet in horror, watching as the shooter closed the distance on the car.
“You bastard!” he hissed. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
He had to make a decision. Should he keep out of sight and let the shooter pass by? Or would he be better off running back to the car, getting the hell out of Alexandra Falls and heading for Portland?
“I’m not crazy” Jack said, watching the shooter stumble down the road like a blind man. “Am I? I’m not lucky enough to be crazy.”
He ran back to the car as fast as he could.
Jack vaulted the fence in one leap and charged over to the driver’s side of the Civic. The robot shooter was about fifty meters away and as soon as it saw Jack sprinting it opened fire.
“Oh shit!” Jack said, almost yanking the car door off the hinges. He jumped inside and pulled the door shut. His fingers fumbled for the car key in his pocket. Jack pulled it out and then howled in terror as he struggled to fit the key into the ignition.
“C’mon damn it!” he yelled. He glanced in the rearview mirror. The shooter was gaining on him fast. Seconds later, another round of gunfire screaming in his ears. The rear windshield smashed open and Jack ducked his head in a frantic bid to avoid the explosion of glass.
He could hear its footsteps.
That chilling, plodding rhythm was getting louder. It was almost on top of his head.
At last, Jack slid the key into the ignition. He turned on the engine and thank God, the car roared into life. Jack slammed his foot down and drove off. At first he kept his head low to avoid getting shot on the way out. It meant he couldn’t see through the windshield but to make sure he didn’t drive off the road, Jack kept the steering wheel straight. As long as there was nothing else on the road he’d be alright, at least for the few seconds it would take to put some distance between himself and the shooter.
; The sound of the AR-15 faded into the background.
Eventually, Jack lifted his head and straightened up in the seat. His heart was pounding and he felt like he was going to be sick. Taking a deep breath, he steered the car back to the center of the road. As he did so, Jack glanced over his shoulder through the broken windshield.
The shooter was still chasing after him.
Chapter 8
The Civic worked its way up to eighty miles per hour. It charged down the steep slope, its engine roaring as a huge gap opened up between Jack and the thing that was trying to kill him.
It wasn’t long before the robot shooter disappeared from the rearview mirror. Despite this small victory however, Jack knew it would keep following him wherever he went.
His sweaty fingers clamped down on the steering wheel. Despite their slipperiness it felt like Jack would need a crowbar to force them loose. He felt an overwhelming desire to hold onto something – the wheel, the seat, himself – anything to stay afloat in this mad sea and push away the permanent sensation of drowning that haunted him.
As he neared the foot of the hill, Jack glanced at a sign on the side of the road. He slammed the brakes and the car skidded to a bumpy halt a short distance beyond the sign.
He sat in silence for a moment, doubting his eyes.
Jack reversed the car and stopped a few feet ahead of the sign. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed it. Everyone who drove the regular route back to town from the school knew this marker even though they paid little attention to it. It was a simple, rectangular sign that read: Town Center. Above those two words there was an arrow with a slight curve to indicate the upcoming sharp bend at the bottom of the road.
But today the sign said something different:
TRUST THE SNOWMAN.
The arrow was still there, pointing towards the town center.
Jack stared at the words for almost a minute. When he snapped out of his daze, he checked the mirror. There was no sign of the shooter – there was nothing but a steep hill of empty road behind him.
Jack’s eyes returned to the sign.
TRUST THE SNOWMAN.
He punched the steering wheel and yelped in pain. As he tried to shake the agony out of his throbbing hand, Jack felt overwhelmed by defeat. It felt like a giant foot was pinning him down, slowly squeezing the life out of his body. Whatever this thing was, he couldn’t outrun it. He couldn’t outdrive it or outthink it either.
It was everywhere. It had him surrounded.
Jack sat there for a while longer, staring at the sign like he was hypnotized. He heard Donna’s voice inside his mind. It was chasing him, just like the shooter.
Go to the light. Trust the Snowman.
Jack checked the mirror. Still no sign of the shooter.
“Go to the light,” he said. “Trust the Snowman. What does that mean anyway? I’m supposed to go into that thing? Walk into that bubble?”
Jack felt lightheaded. Now that he’d stopped and everything was quiet, the strange ordeal was catching up with him. It was like he’d been awake for days and now all he wanted to do was lean back, close his eyes and sleep for a long time. But no matter how much he wanted it, the wheels in his mind wouldn’t stop turning. No matter how sick and tired he was of this endless, frustrating puzzle, he couldn’t stop trying to figure it out.
Was Donna right? Should he trust the Snowman? There was every chance Jack had interpreted the situation wrong. He had theories about what was happening – war, invasion, hallucinations, madness – but very little in the way of facts. Was he wrong about everything so far? Was the Snowman trying to protect Jack from the shooter?
His weary mind explored the questions once again. A fresh perspective, that’s what he needed. Think damn it. Alexandra Falls – a town full of people that had just stopped moving all of a sudden. Jack was the only one who’d escaped the paralysis trap.
Why? What was so special about him?
He scratched his head and thought about the sudden emergence of the Snowman and the robot shooter. They’d come out of nowhere. Two mysterious forces that were now pursuing Jack with fanatical determination – what did they want?
“And why me?” he asked.
The Civic’s engine was still running. Jack kept one hand locked onto the wheel in case he needed to take off in a hurry. With a sigh, he reached over and pinched the skin on the back of his hand. It wasn’t the first time that day he’d done it.
It still wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a nightmare either.
He stared at the hilly road through the rearview mirror. Waiting for the clumsy footsteps of death – for the robot shooter to show up and start shooting at him all over again.
Waiting for…
Death.
Jack sat bolt upright. He felt a cold chill go through him. The puzzle was sliding into place at last and something coherent was forming, drifting out of the fog of his mind and into plain sight.
“Oh my God,” he said.
It was like the rising sun chasing off a long night. It had been there all along, just waiting for Jack to accept it. This entire thing was a message to be deciphered and at last, the true meaning of waxworld was revealed.
It wasn’t an attack by the Russians or North Koreans. It wasn’t aliens either.
And no, he wasn’t crazy or hallucinating.
He was dead.
Jack Murray had died.
Now here he was, a spirit of the in between place. This was the waiting room. Everything that had happened was the immediate reality of life after death. The spirit goes somewhere before going to the final destination. But what was Jack’s final destination? That’s what this was all about. The Snowman and the shooter were at war and the spoil of battle was Jack Murray’s eternal soul.
He had heard Donna’s voice –it was a gift. It was a familiar voice that urged him to safety, towards the arms of the Snowman.
“Go to the light,” Jack said, looking at the road sign.
All this time he’d been running from the shelter. From safety. And now the shooter had appeared to take advantage of the delay Jack had caused by fleeing. It must have sensed the opportunity to claim a vagrant soul and drag it down to…
…where?
Hell?
Jack wrapped both hands around the steering wheel. Even though he was sitting down it felt like he was falling.
“I’m dead?” he said. “Oh my God, I’m dead.”
He glanced in the mirror. Was that really Hell at his back, chasing him down with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle? And was Heaven waiting behind a bubble of fuzzy black and white light in the town center?
All he had to do was follow the sign.
Jack caught a glimpse of his handsome face in the mirror. It looked normal. Undamaged. “What happened to me?” he said. “How did I die?”
It didn’t matter anymore. There was no pain, only sadness at the thought of what his parents, Donna and all his friends were going through in the world he’d left behind. He’d been well loved in life. He was only seventeen years old for God’s sake.
Jack nodded. It all made sense now. Those alien sensations he’d felt earlier today – the bizarre onslaught of lust and greed that were so out of character – they were tests. They were the ultimate tests. But he hadn’t touched Mrs Lancaster inappropriately. And he hadn’t stolen any money either. The only thing he took was a vanilla frosted donut in Hudson’s and surely that wasn’t a big deal.
Perhaps if Jack had really failed there wouldn’t be a Snowman at all, only the shooter on his back, waiting to escort him to eternal damnation.
“I’ll trust you,” he said, looking at the sign. “If Donna says it’s okay, then it’s okay. I won’t run away this time.”
Jack drove the Civic to the bottom of the hill, steering the car around the sharp left that led towards the town center.
Soon he was back on Main Street.
Jack drove slowly, a bittersweet feeling pinching his heart. There was a strange absence of shock in
his mind about being dead. In some ways it was actually a relief because it was better than the alternatives he’d conjured up earlier. Better for everyone.
At least this way he had a choice.
He could choose the light.
Jack kept the Civic at a steady pace. Alexandra Falls went past slowly and it was beautiful – a quiet and elegant place that Jack now realized he hadn’t fully appreciated in his short lifetime. Its quirky, bright and colorful throwback buildings were a sight for sore eyes. He passed the Alexandra Falls Tavern – a gorgeous Victorian building, bright red on the outside, with a New Orleans inspired balcony on the second floor and best of all, an old-fashioned turret on the roof.
He’d been too eager to get away. Jack knew that now. He’d spent all his days recently browsing through college brochures and daydreaming about the big wide world and the life that awaited him.
But surely there was nothing better than this.
The Civic stopped near the Octagon and Jack turned the engine off.
The Snowman was there, waiting for him.
Jack swallowed hard. He opened the door and stepped outside. He walked towards the Octagon without hesitation, concentrating on the grainy TV light that surrounded the Snowman. He heard Donna’s voice in his head, encouraging him.
The dark, human shape in the center of the light floated gently. It was a man trapped in a massive web of pixel noise.
Jack stopped.
“I understand now,” he said. “I get it and I’m ready to go with you.”
The Snowman reached his black arms out, like he was initiating a long-distance embrace.
“That’s good Jack,” he said. “That’s very good.”
“What happened to me?” Jack asked. “How did I die?”
There was a long pause.
“Trust me Jack,” the Snowman said. “Close your eyes and walk towards the light that surrounds me. I’ll take you away from this terrible, lonely place. There won’t be any fear or pain where we’re going. All who would seek to hurt you will be gone because this world is finished for you. Will you come to the light Jack?”
The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection Page 21