by West, Sam
No more beam of light. No more woman.
She looked wildly around herself, still unable to get her legs to move. Her gaze suddenly locked with the woman with whom she had parted ways with just minutes earlier. Like the others, she had been shucked from the shelter of the house that she had sought refuge in like an oyster from its shell.
I didn’t even ask her name, she thought abstractly, before she too found herself surrounded by that very same tube of light. The world shimmered and undulated beyond the confines of her tube and when she tried to pass through it, an invisible pressure pushed her back. She could see other women, similarly trapped.
Looking up gave her vertigo, the damn thing stretched on and on forever until it disappeared to a point the size of a pinhead. She wrenched her gaze away, forcing her mind back from the brink of madness.
It didn’t hurt, but at the same time, it was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Every cell in her body tingled, like they were being manipulated and altered.
There was no other way to describe it, she was being prepped to fly up that tube of light at the speed of light. She knew this on an instinctive level, and there was something else that she knew as well:
They’re impregnating us. Infertile women are slaughtered.
Her own words echoed in her head, and it was this mix of clarity and instinct that saved her life. In one tingling hand she still held the secateurs, and she positioned the tip of the blades at the entrance to her vagina. The tingling sensation that penetrated every last inch of her body intensified, accompanied by the fact her feet were now peddling air.
Gritting her teeth, she plunged in the blades with as much force as she could muster. Fiery agony exploded in her lower gut before the ground rushed up to meet her.
Dimly, she was aware of the heat of her blood erupting from her vagina and gushing down her legs.
And then there was just blackness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO MONTHS LATER:
Time was a great healer. Or so they said. Amber didn’t think so. Amber thought that was a crock of shit. Time merely glossed over the horrors and stored them up so they could play over and over again in her nightmares.
Amber was snuggled into the crook of Alfie’s arm, watching a debate on some news show on TV – it was the only type of programme they watched nowadays. Hell, it was the only thing ever on. A University lecturer, and a journalist, both in grey suits with grey personalities to match, were discussing the state of the world under the watchful eye of the host. The lecturer was speaking to the journalist:
“So you’re telling me that you really think this is all a big conspiracy? You idiotic conspiracy theorists are in overdrive.”
“How is it even possible that NASA claim to know nothing? How can an alien invasion leave no trace whatsoever? It’s impossible,” the journalist said.
“No, not impossible,” the lecturer said. “Millions of people the world over reported the same phenomena, that is, a tube of light that came down and made the woman disappear. If these women travelled at the speed of light, they could disappear before the naked eye when in reality, they were simply transported to another galaxy.”
“To another galaxy far, far away?” the journalist spat. “Do me a favour, this isn’t Star Treck. It’s some mass extermination performed by the government, a massive cull to do away with women of reproductive age to keep the population down.”
“That’s utter poppy-cock,” the lecturer said. “I’ll go along with you that NASA aren’t being entirely straight with the people of the world, but it’s not out of malice. It’s not a bloody conspiracy. I think that NASA possibly knows more than they’re letting on. Rightly or wrongly, I believe they are protecting us.”
“Protecting us? From what?”
“Not from what, from whom. They’re protecting us from ourselves, from mass panic.”
The journalist barked laughter. “Mass panic? It’s a bit late for that don’t you think? Almost one hundred towns and cities the world over were hit by the green fog. Almost ninety million women were exterminated and their bodies were somehow vaporised. And that figure doesn’t take into account the millions of elderly women that were brutally murdered, or the million plus men that the women killed in self-defence.”
“No. The women were not exterminated, they were taken. I think that the real question here is what do these aliens want with our women? It is blatantly obvious to me that this alien race has been studying us for who knows how many years, watching our every move until finally they struck. I am not alone in thinking that they wanted to splice their genes with humans. Hidden within the green fog was a form of Viagra, turning every man that breathed it into a rapist. Along with this aphrodisiac, each man’s sperm was spliced with alien DNA.”
“It wasn’t aliens. It was the government. It was some state-of-the-art drug that turned men into murderers to cull the population.”
“How can that possibly be true? It doesn’t even make sense, men raped women of reproductive age and killed those that weren’t fertile. Men had the ability to sniff out fertile women. Children were spared for the next time.”
“Children were spared because government was playing God, because they decided they should live,” the journalist said.
“No, the children were spared because the aliens will come back for the girls when they are adults. Technically, most females are still growing until the age of seventeen or eighteen. Obviously, the aliens didn’t want the carriers of their babies to be still growing themselves. A sixteen-year-old girl may be menstruating, but she hasn’t reached full developmental maturity.”
“Obviously,” the journalist replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“They wanted pregnant women, pure and simple. Maybe I’m wrong about them infusing their genetics with ours, but I know I’m right about them wanting twenty million babies. Maybe these babies will be alien-human hybrids, or maybe they will be pure human, but one thing I know for sure, the aliens want those babies. Who knows why, perhaps their race is dying out, or they want to create a source of cheap labour. Maybe those kids will grow up to become the planet’s slave race. Hell, maybe they’ll just be sold as sex toys, or food. Or maybe the aliens just fancied experimenting on twenty million pregnant women to better understand humans.”
“You’re sick.”
“I’m sick? I don’t wish to be flippant – this is a catastrophe of epic proportions. How can we fight an enemy that we cannot see, that attacks without warning and will undoubtedly be immune to bullets? Yes, the government has issued gasmasks to pretty much everyone on the whole planet, but who’s to say that that will make any difference? Life, as we knew it, is over, we are having to rebuild the world in which we live…”
“Can we turn this off?” she said, reaching for the remote. The TV went black.
“Sure. How are you feeling?”
A wave of irritation stirred within her. Why did he always have to ask that?
“Fine.”
The truth was, whenever she looked at her husband, all she saw was a rapist. They hadn’t had sex since before that night, and given what she felt right then, she doubted that they ever would again.
Just give it time… She smiled humourlessly. Time. The answer to everything.
“Why are you grimacing?”
“I’m not grimacing.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What for?”
“For what I did to you.”
Immediately, she felt guilty for the stirring of hatred she occasionally felt towards him. It wasn’t his fault. None of this was his fault. Every single man that was affected by the green fog claimed to have no memory of the atrocities they committed. Like Alfie, each of these men had to live with the guilt of what they had done.
The world was in a bloody mess and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
“Do you want to talk about that night?”
Inside, she balked.
“I don’t remem
ber much, you know, after what I did to myself.”
That much was true. The events that followed after she had destroyed her womb and the life that was supposed to grow within it were a blur. A nice woman in a nearby cottage had taken her in. Many hours had passed before she was able to get to a hospital because of all the chaos, and it was lucky she hadn’t died of blood loss.
“I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about what I did to you.”
Her thoughts strayed to Marjorie and Sara, brutally murdered by their husbands. She wondered how many women her own husband had gone on to murder or rape after he had left her in the garden. She thought of Colin, alive and living with the guilt of what he had done, just like Alfie. Then she thought of Jeff, who had died from blood loss that night after she had attacked him with the chainsaw.
“No, I don’t want to talk about that,” she said.
“Mummee, I can’t sleep.”
Jessie’s voice, coming from the doorway made her jump.
“Sweetie, I’m sure I just put you to bed.”
She looked so sweet standing there in her nightshirt with a picture of a snowman plastered across her front that Jessie’s heart gave a lurch of pure love. She padded with bare feet over to her mother, completely blanking her father, like she always did nowadays. Alfie pretended not to notice just like he always did.
Just give us time, she thought bitterly.
Jessie snuggled in next to her and Amber held her tight. Clearing his throat, Alfie got to his feet.
“Why don’t I make us a cuppa,” he said, heading for the kitchen.
Mother and daughter held each other, not speaking. Amber stroked her hair, thinking for the millionth time how brave and amazing her daughter was. How she would have sooner died that night than give up searching for her.
I just wish I’d had the brains to look round the back of the house…
Jessie had been hiding in the toolshed the entire time. It was so heartbreakingly logical and simple, and every day she kicked herself for not thinking to look there.
“Mummy, will things ever get back to normal?”
Amber hugged her tighter. Oh, how she wanted to lie, but the world was different now.
“No, sweetie, things can’t be the same anymore.”
She closed her eyes and thought of Alfie. Of how she was still secretly terrified of him. Of Sara and Marjorie, brutally murdered by the very people who were supposed to protect them. Of her wider circle of female friends and acquaintances who were somewhere ‘up there’.
“Will it happen again, Mummy?”
Inside, her heart broke.
Yes, she thought instinctively. It will happen again when you’re all grown-up. When all the little girls are women. You’ll be with the next batch to be carted off into the sky…
“I don’t know, sweetie, but we can’t worry about something that might not even happen.”
It wasn’t a complete lie, not really.
“What time does it get dark, Mummy?”
“About nine. Why?”
“Because it looks dark outside.”
Amber’s heart lurched. On shaking legs, she extracted herself from her daughter’s grip and went over to the window. She peeked through the blind – Jessie was right, it was overcast. The horizon out to sea was distinctly foggy.
She shivered.
Yeah, and that’s all it is. It’s just a little bit overcast.
Jessie joined her at the window and Amber pulled her close, all her senses on high-alert.
What if he’s changed?
Stop it, of course he hasn’t, it’s over.
“Everything’s fine, don’t worry.”
Together, they silently watched the grey horizon.
Together, they waited.
The End.
Hello, you reached the end of The Green Fog. Thanks for reading, I appreciate it more than I can say. Below, I have enclosed the first chapter of my book, Victim: An Extreme Horror Novel.
I love to hear from you with any thoughts you may have, so please feel free to drop me a line – my email address is over on my author page at Amazon. Thanks again, dear reader.
Sweet nightmares,
Sam.
CHAPTER ONE
Victim: An Extreme Horror Novel
Greg sat on the edge of the bed, his heart hammering at the enormity of what he was about to do.
You can’t read her diary, it’s deceitful, it’s a breach of her trust, it’s horrible, it’s…
Necessary.
The hiss of the shower coming from the en-suite bathroom did little to soothe his jangled nerves – just because she wouldn’t know he had had read it, it didn’t make it right.
His fiancée’s diary – although it wasn’t strictly a dairy and more of a personal account of ‘that night’ – rested accusingly on his lap, taunting him, daring him to open it. His ran a trembling fingertip over the cheap, cardboard-like cover, hating himself for being so bloody weak.
I’ve only read the first page, I don’t have to read the rest.
But after reading the first page, he knew that he didn’t have a choice. Written on that page were the words: May 31st 2015: THE NIGHT MY LIFE CHANGED FOREVER.
On reading that, he had slammed shut the exercise-book, his heart pounding like a heart-attack victim.
But I have to know what really happened, what she went through and how she feels about it…
Yeah, okay. Or maybe you’re just a nosey, snooping shithead.
Sighing deeply, he stared at the offending diary.
I wish I hadn’t found it. It was a stupid place to leave it, anyway. I mean, who leaves something so private just sitting there on the bedside-table? This is her fault, she should’ve remembered to hide it.
Fuck it, was his final thought before he opened it and began to read…
May 31st 2015:
THE NIGHT MY LIFE CHANGED FOREVER
My therapist thinks that writing about that night will help. I guess it’s worth a try, it’s what I do, after all. I write therefore I am… God, that sounds so lame. (What would my darling Greg think of me if he knew what I really went through that night?)
I thought it might be a good idea to write about it in the form of fiction. I thought that maybe, if I attacked it like I would one of my novels, it will be easier for me to come to terms with what happened. This way, perhaps I will be able to make sense of it all, I’ll be able to look at it objectively. Maybe, If I’m really lucky, I might even find some kind of closure.
Who’d have thought that when I started writing extreme horror fiction, my life would turn into something from straight out of one of my novels?
I feel sick at the thought of writing this down, but here it goes anyway. This is what really happened that horrible night exactly one year ago today…
NEW BEGINNINGS
“So, here we are,” Scott said, silencing the engine of the blue Audi A3.
It was so quiet here.
Too quiet. Spooky quiet.
“Yeah. Here we are,” I said.
“Hey, you’re not nervous are you? Just relax and be yourself, they’re gonna love you.”
His hand on my knee did little to soothe my nerves and I let out a shaky breath. “What’s not to love, right?”
“Exactly.”
My smile felt tight and unnatural as my gaze flitted from my fiancé’s warm brown eyes to the imposing barn conversion in the middle of nowhere. It looked like the ‘after’ of some property-conversion, dream-home documentary that seemed to be on every TV channel going nowadays. I mean, when Scott had said his parents lived in a barn conversion, I had pictured a converted row of stables or something, not this glass-fronted, architect’s wet-dream.
The big glass window which was divided into eight panels that ran from floor to ceiling was easily as big as our terraced house in the heart of Canterbury. And it still only made up less than a quarter of the property’s frontage.
With a shiver, I thought about Mr and Mr
s Jones waiting for me inside.
They’re gonna hate me.
No, they’re not.
How can his dad not love me? He writes, I write, we have so much in common…
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You write extreme horror, his dad writes Philosophy text books. He’s gonna hate you…
“Ground control to Chloe Fox? Are you receiving?”
I dragged my gaze away from the imposing building and forced another rictus of a grin. “I’m receiving just fine. Just a bit nervous, that’s all.”
“I told you, don’t be. You’re gorgeous, funny, intelligent, kind… I could go on.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“The fact we have to get inside and meet my mum and dad. Come on, I’ll grab the bags.”
“No,” I said, a little too sharply. I softened my voice for him. “I have a present for you I just dumped on the luggage, I didn’t have time to wrap it.”
“What kind of present?”
“I guess you’ll just have to wait ‘til later to find out.”
“I love surprises.”
I giggled and coquettishly batted my eyelashes, twirling a strand of long blonde hair around my forefinger. “You’re going to love this one.”
Just then, my mobile rang inside my shoulder-bag. “Sorreee,” I said, fumbling for the offending machine. “Shit, it’s my agent, I have to take this. Hello?”
“Darling, great news, you’ve been optioned,” said the incredibly camp, speed-talking male voice on the other hand.
“Hang on, Justin,” I said, clamping my hand over the receiver. “It’s about the film-rights, I’m sorry, I really do have to take this.”
“I know baby, it’s fine. I’m gonna go in, give you some privacy. Come in when you’re ready?”
“Sure. I love you.”
“I love you, too, my brilliant, writer fiancée.”
I blew him a kiss and turned my attention back to Justin who was rabbiting on about my book, an incredibly fucked up version of Aladdin and the Lamp.