by Jack Vantage
“Quick, push a statue,” Dylan said. Start with the mum. She looks older than the dad.”
Swiftly Dylan pushed the father figure, a cumbersome weight, towards its position. Lecodia pushed the mother figure, with anxiety intensifying at each passing second.
Both statues clicked into position.
Lecodia looked around at the encroaching terror. The corpses reached at them with twisting upper bodies. She pushed at the largest child figure until a rotting hand clasped her leg and yanked her off her feet. She fell to the floor on her back.
She screamed and kicked the rancid arms off her.
She bounced back up and quickly positioned the figure. Dylan grabbed the last and placed it in its spot.
All the statues lowered slowly into the floor.
Dylan and Lecodia ran back to the pulpit and faced the passage that had guided their actions. They waited for the room to stop closing, but it didn’t. It kept coming. Only a few metres of space boxed them in
The wall’s bodies folded and pressed into the squidgy tissue as the ceiling pressed down over them. The hive of hands edged closer and closer and finally clutched at Lecodia’s hair from above and sideward, tugging at her.
“Get them off me! Get them off me!” she pleaded as she fought the hands.
A set of dead palms caught her wrists and lifted her arms up. Other hands wandered her body, touching places that only she should allow.
Dylan beat at them until he too was grabbed and touched by the deathly palms. Blood covered their faces, and the faces of death looked at them with Hell beckoning eternal incarceration.
They both screamed.
Lecodia was overcome by fear. It petrified her. The experience was the most horrific she’d ever lived. She screamed again.
The floor gave way beneath their feet, and they plummeted in different directions as the hands let them go.
Lecodia tumbled and slid down a dusty, brick-like tube. Then she exited and bumped to a stop on a garbage-bagged floor. Dust kicked up into the dim, musty air. She thanked God life still gifted her.
Then she cried. Her threshold had been crossed, abused. She sat whimpering in a dark tunnel-like alcove. The day and night had turned into a real horror story, a real mess, and a real nightmare. Her mind kept saying that all was going to be all right, but she feared the worst. The place suffocated her with a frightful panic.
She wiped away the tear or two that had dampened her cheeks, then lifted herself to her feet in the dark, dusty environment.
“Dylan?” She was too afraid to raise her voice any higher. Instead, a slight cry escaped her. If she shouted and called, what would come for her?
The alcove was an arched brick, like she was in a coal cellar. In front of her stood a thick oak door. She needed to be brave. She wanted to cry out loud for the emotional torture to stop.
Lecodia gently placed her hand on the door knob and nervously opened it. She was expecting a picture of evil, but instead got a warm sense of inviting safety. A small child’s bedroom, colourful and light, formed before her.
A purple wooden bed sat left of the room with a light pink princess quilt covering it. The wallpaper was decorated with a serene collection of balloons, and a border circled the wall’s centre, where princess crowns and wands were cutely drawn with happy stars. A music box tinkled a nursery rhyme, while toys and dolls lay strewn in bold colour over the pink carpet, but nobody seemed home.
Lecodia walked the room to a sash window. She drew the white curtains open and peered outside to a large night-green garden. The surrounding environment was shadowed by the thick of night. The only light source was an external bulb that ignited the lush grass garden below.
A noise moved downstairs, drawing Lecodia’s edgy attention, and she exited through an unused door.
A small landing led her to a flight of stairs, wooden and thin. There, came the nearing clink of a tea cup being lifted and placed on a saucer. Lecodia descended the stairs. Each step of the creaky stairs felt like an eternity, until finally her feet touched the ground floor of a plush modern house.
To her left she viewed an open planed kitchen, clean and stylish, and to her right was a living room where the clinking continued. A cream carpet ran inside, and Lecodia carefully entered where a young girl sat centre room, back to her, at a small children’s table. The child’s dark hair was long and perfect. It was tied in a neat pony tail, and she spoke with soft innocence to guests that surrounded the table.
“There you go, Mister Grisly,” she said to a shaggy teddy bear. His brown coat was beaten by time.
The teddy sat at the table with her, a tea party, and she delicately placed a tiny flowery cup in front of him. Sat either side of her were two porcelain dolls who eerily stared blankly into the bare room. Their coating skin was unglazed and life-like. One was dressed in a pinafore outfit, while the second wore a pantaloon pattern. All basked in front of an open wood fire that crackled and snapped with warmth. The walls were flock patterned, a velvet cut Victorian style that coloured a deep pink.
“Hello, are you lost? Where are your parents?” Lecodia said carefully.
The child stopped her pretend and turned her head. Her eyes were beautiful. They shone like priceless jewellery and held more innocence than a butterfly in flight.
“Take a seat,” she said, with sweetness that would have melted the hardest of hearts.
Slowly, Lecodia tootied her bum on the free miniature wooden chair.
The child was elegantly clothed in a yellow spring dress, and the table looked delicious with its collection of colourful cakes, plates, and teas.
“Where’s your mommy?” Lecodia asked. “Are you lost in here? Are they looking for you?”
“They’ll be back in a minute. Have a cup of tea while we wait. Daddy is looking for mommy.”
“Where are they? Where is he looking for her? This is no place for a girl like you to be alone.”
The young child lifted her hand and pointed towards a wooden, glass patio door that led out into the garden. Then she lifted her tiny tea pot and pretended to pour a cup for Lecodia. Her bearing was impeccably regal, her hands moved with the utmost care.
Lecodia joined the charade and sipped at the tiny cup. “What’s your name?”
“Jemima,” she replied, as she poured more tea for her guests.
“What are your friends’ names?”
“You can ask them yourself,” she replied, continuing her play.
The left side porcelain doll turned her head and looked at Lecodia, blinking. It stared her with ominous eyes. They remained lifeless, but behind the inanimate stare lay a horror that disturbed Lecodia inside, like a demon was spying through them.
Next the grumpy-looking teddy turned his head, and finally the second porcelain doll, which smiled a sinister smile, like it was proud of inflicting pain.
Lecodia looked at the child, who was lost in the land of pretend, oblivious to the horror that surrounded her.
Bang! Bang, bang!
Lecodia jumped out of her skin and turned to the large glass doors.
A man, blood-soaked and panicked, beat at the door. “Jemima! Jemima, open the door quick! Jemima, honey, open the door!” he shouted as he banged on the glass and pulled hard on the door handle.
Lecodia lifted herself up and stepped towards the door.
“Don’t open that door!” Jemima said, her tone stern.
Lecodia stopped in her tracks and looked at the terrified man. His face was dowsed in blood, like someone had hosed him in it. He thumped at the door like his life depended on it. His blooded hands left stains on the glazing at every bump.
Lecodia turned to the girl. “Jemima, I have to open it”
Jemima stood table side, looking at Lecodia with an invading evil. “We’ll all die if you open it.”
The man turned and picked up a patio chair. He threw it with force, but it bounced off the glass, broken in two. “Jemima, please!” the man said. “Your mum!” He kicked at the door.
“Jemima!” he screamed as tears flooded his panic.
Lecodia looked hopelessly at him, confused and scared.
Then he screamed and vanished upward like something had snatched him. He sounded a louder scream and his bones crunched. Then a splurge of gore showered down and splashed the patio door glass.
Terror restrained Lecodia. It glued her to the spot. She turned and looked to Jemima, who started slowly towards her. “You know what you’ve done?” she said.
Her innocence had disappeared, replace by a possession. Her eyebrows arched with rage and her voice turned demonic. Her face morphed and twisted satanically, like Lucifer was trying to free himself from inside her.
“Only the dead are welcome here,” she said in a demonic chant.
A loud smash sounded upstairs followed by heavy footsteps.
Lecodia didn’t want to find out what was coming, so she turned and ran for the glass doors. She unlocked them and slid them open. Her breath was fast, her heart faster, and she ran for the closed board gate, at the end of the pool-lit lawn, screaming with terror.
With each step she expected a cold hand to clasp her ankle and drag her to hell. She felt evil eyes that gazed at her back.
Don’t look back! she repeated. Don’t look back! Just get to the gate!
When she opened it, she breathed a sigh of relief. Dozens of tourists were walking through a light green corridor. All wore the same look of trauma. All except for the boy teens, who giggled and recounted the horrible situations they’d been through.
“The spiders! Man, the spiders were fucking awesome!” one said.
“I liked the ghosts, the ones that flew right through you,” another said.
“Hey guys, is this the way out?” Lecodia asked, shaking.
“Yeah, just follow us. All the paths exit up ahead,” another replied.
Lecodia stopped, placed her back against a wall and breathed heavily. She wiped her face of tears and recomposed herself. She didn’t see him standing next to her with restraints ready, she didn’t realise until she turned and walked into him.
“Lecodia Ale, you are under apprehension.” Black cuffs snapped around her wrists.
She looked up, startled.
Nexus grinned. “Your ass is mine.”
A small shocker dug into her waist. Current vibrated her body until her consciousness faded out.
###
Dylan moved the exit corridor, looking for Lecodia. He saw the teens that had shared the start of the ride. “Hey guys you see a tall lady, beautiful, long legs?”
“She was taken by the Authoritarians a second ago,” one said, then pointed. “That way.”
“Shit!” Dylan ran for the exit.
He reached the opening outside and looked around the dim arena. The place moved, alive with hundreds of bodies. He looked frantically for Lecodia.
An Authoritarian sky-mobile rose above a game stall where kids were shooting electric charges at exploding bats. Nexus was smiling in the passenger side of the vehicle as it lifted into the air.
Dylan looked around again and realised the place was teeming with the law. He inauspiciously blended in with the crowd, head down. He would need to track her chip for her location. Thank God he’d clicked it back on the roof top.
As he headed in the direction of the park’s main exit, suddenly the sky lit gold and a heat flash echoed a loud thunderous noise. The sun flashed brighter than ever. It stopped Dylan in his tracks like every other member of the park. “What the fuck?” Dylan said as he tried to shield his eyes upward.
Little did Dylan know that time was running out.
Chapter 23
Time
Dylan ran like something possessed him, weaving through crowds of condensed people. The path of life had turned dangerous, unknown, like he was blind and could not see a wall nearing. Lecodia was at the front of his mind, her perilous position poisoning his rational thinking. Yesterday he was secure with the safety of youth; today he wrestled with uncertainty in a fight for his life.
He’d traced her location to a small, disused factory, which was a stone’s throw from where they’d escaped on the sky-bike the day before. He dreaded to think what the evil bastards were doing to her. They could be touching her, threatening her, or playing with her.
He was ground level, city centre, the buildings above a tall collection of glass and stone mingled with an eclectic mix of advertising.
He moved past the front of a hotel, its gold-sprinkled glass canopy extended out over the busy stone pavement. The entrance was a golden paradise of style and class. In front of him a porter, dressed in a long grey coat and top hat, pulled a hovering case carrier. Before he could stop, Dylan ploughed into it.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” the old porter said. His body looked shaken by the collision.
“Sorry, sir. Sorry,” Dylan replied as a fur-wearing woman, yuppie in her movement, and with a plump, aging face, began beating at him with her stick.
“Those are my cases, you little vermin!” she shouted.
Dylan ducked away and continued his run.
He looked left, where sky-mobiles moved along at ground level. Then he looked upward, to where the sky-ways layered higher and higher between the buildings. Each skyway marked its presence in the cities grid, where the sky-mobiles moved like particles traveling a circuit board.
He had hitched a ride from the theme park with a small family. The family had got him close, six mile it stated on his GPS. He needed to find another form of transport to reach her. The family he hitched a ride with were concerned, as was everyone, about the flash of light that seduced the sun. No one had an answer. All the radio and communication stations on board the family’s sky-mobile were perplexed by the event. The stations had stated that none of the scientific world’s telescopes were in contact with them, like they had all been abducted or something.
Dylan jogged at a brisk pace. He neared Capital Square, and a news cast caught his attention. Thousands of people gathered at the foot of the Mayor’s building and surrounding buildings, where they looked up to one of the giant adverting screens that projected upon it. The Mayors' building was a triangular tip of a sky scraper that formed a block corner before the green park Dylan had reached. Upon the screen the news was relaying developments on the story of the Sun. The crowd stood restless, like they were attending a rock concert that was verging performance. They were waiting for news and filled the green grass of the park.
The news presenter was Dylan’s favourite, Fiona. She looked as formally sexy as ever as she spoke to the public of Quazar. “No news yet from the president. We are still unable to comment on the problem, if it is a problem.” She glanced down to her notes, then back up again. “We still are unable to get any kind of explanation, any kind of answer from anyone. We’re sure the government are preparing a press conference of some kind to shed light on this matter.”
Suddenly she put a hand to one ear, and her face turned horrified. “Pe-people of Quazar,” she stuttered. She looked down to her notes then back. “We—we have some disturbing news.” She placed her hand to her ear again and the horrified look intensified.
She looked off-camera for confirmation, then continued. “A major disaster has struck Quazar. Actually, two major disasters have struck Quazar within the last five minutes. We can cut to images of the destruction caused by an unknown force to the equator belt at the east and west of the planet. Six hundred square miles of Quazar have been vaporised in a heat blast of some kind.” Her look of shell-shocked incredulity silenced the crowd.
The image distorted and re-focused high in the Quazar air, from a sky-way. A vast area of a city landscape was scorched to the bone by an intense fire that raged like it was unstoppable. Super sky-scrapers were on fire, their glass shells ablaze.
The crowd of people around Central Square reacted in horror, their voices airing the start of panic into the city’s core.
Holding back tears, Fiona said, “Central Capital 23 and Central C
apital 47 have been destroyed, along with every living habitant.”
The crowd were in disbelief. Not one of the thousands had their eyes anywhere but the screen, which displayed the cities’ tall buildings cascading in fire, ablaze like they were built on the sun, awash with hell. It hypnotised the crowd with horror, ripped their hearts out as they viewed fellow Quazarians engulfed in flames, like Satan had unleashed his underworld and wrath on them.
“An estimated two point five million Quazarians have perished in the fire, and as of yet we have no cause, no reason,” Fiona said. She wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.
On screen a monorail high above the ground was traveling fast, flames flailing behind it. People were jumping to their death from the monorail. Small orange dots, engulfed in fire, dropped from the moving inferno. Sky-mobiles fell from the air like it was raining fire, and buildings exploded, adding to the heat that had ignited the land.
Forcefully, Fiona said, “Please cut to another image.”
The crowd begin talking. Voices travelled everywhere. People began shouting, “What if it happens to us? Where is the president?” The panic had begun.
Dylan could feel the terror in their hearts, the fear. He looked around and saw uncertainty, like someone was playing a bad joke on them. People looked to each other for solidarity and support.
The ground based sky-way had stopped. People were leaving their mobiles and gathered at centre Square like herded sheep. Everyone was magnetised to the events of the millennium.
Fiona said, “I don’t know what to say. This is the gravest day of our lives. It appears that Quazar has experienced its worst natural disaster in history. As soon as we know the cause we will let you know.”
She paused, her hand to her ear. “I’m sorry. We have reports coming in. We will cut live to Matt Jones who witnessed some of the events from a sky-mobile ten miles back from the destruction zone. Matt what can you tell us?”
The image cut to Matt Jones, who was a clean-cut suit-wearing business man, with smooth white corporate hair. His eyes were wide and dazed. They looked as if they’d betrayed him. His edgy tone was that of someone who’d brushed death. A presenter off screen prompted him to start. “Matt, tell us what happened.”