Diary of the Displaced Box Set

by Glynn James

  I eventually came out on the other side, covered in cobwebs and dust. I was pretty sure I saw something crawling around on the ground while I was making my way through the short tunnel, but I moved away quickly, preferring not to think about it or get any closer.

  The alleyway was wider than I had imagined from JH’s description, but it was piled high with junk, just as it had been when he escaped from here.

  Bingo! I spotted the rope hanging from the partially open window of the fourth house in the row. The gate was already open – well, falling off its hinges, I’d say. It was half hanging off, and about a quarter of it was on the ground a few feet away.

  I headed forward, stepping over a pile of trash bags, and then stopped. On the ground in front of me, half against the wall and half across the alleyway, was a very dead thing.

  A Kre’esh, I thought. It was one of CutterJack’s LizardThings, and it was very decayed. I could make out the texture of the creature’s skin, but most of it had rotted away. I stepped around it, my mind racing with thoughts that hadn’t occurred to me before that moment. Kre’esh wandered this place, and Shamblers – what JH called zombies. I’d encountered both, many times.

  I had to stay alert.

  I edged into the yard behind the house and headed over to the rope, gave it a quick tug to check that it was still secure, and started climbing, finally falling into the room on the top floor of the house twenty seconds later.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 11:12

  The house is almost completely empty.

  Everything is gone.

  No books on the shelves, no machine in the basement, nothing. When they sealed up this place they must have come in here and taken everything. I could understand why. If they wanted to stop someone from researching what may really have happened in the past, it made sense to clean the place out, and, I suppose, The Resistance in Evac City would want everything that would have been here for the central archive.

  The beds in the other rooms were still there, though, and when I saw the first one I felt my eyes drooping. I had forgotten how tired I was. I pulled down the window, checked that the front door was bolted, shut myself in the room at the top and flopped onto the bed.

  But I couldn’t sleep.

  I had too much going round my head, especially the knowledge of what may be in the next street. I had to go and see.

  So, after an hour of trying to sleep and failing, I opened the front door and left it unlocked, then headed back through the alleyway and into the street beyond the next row of houses.

  This was where JH ran to escape the Kre’esh, and as I stepped out I saw the manhole cover, still upside down from when he had dropped down into the sewers. Almost reluctantly I turned, looking the other way down the street, knowing full well what I should see there.

  In the distance, about a hundred yards away, was the cross that Dha’mir had been hung on. It still stood there, in the middle of the street, still upright after all these years. I walked towards it, squinting to make out more detail through the mist that hung in the street, and then stopped fifty yards away, staring, unnerved and shocked.

  Because there was no body hanging from the cross.

  I ran forward and stopped just a few feet away, searching the ground around the cross. Nothing. The dried up remains of Kre’esh were all around the cross, but there was no evidence that Dha’mir had ever been there.

  Had someone come back and taken him? They must have. JH shot him in the head, didn’t he? That’s what the journal said. He’d killed him, and a shot to the head would surely be fatal. The creature couldn’t recover from that. No way.

  I headed back to the house, went back inside, and sat on the stairs in the hall, pondering what to do next. I could head to the shack. I had enough details in the journal to attempt to find it, or I could go where I expect my mother would have gone.

  She’d have gone straight to the portal on the hill, where CutterJack had escaped.

  Ten minutes later, after a trudge back to the house where I’d stashed some of my stuff rather than carry it all with me, I was walking out of The City, leaving behind the mystery of Dha’mir and the empty house. I could think of no reason to head to the shack, or even to the Junkyard. It would just be curiosity slowing me down.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 11:30

  Saw something very odd as I was heading away from The City. I’m not even sure what it was. As I stepped down from the cobbled pavement onto the broken ground that marks where the built up area ends, I noticed movement. It was just on the edge of my vision. I stopped, raising my gun, thinking that something had caught sight of me – a Kre’esh or a Shambler, maybe. But when I looked along the row of houses I saw a bright flash of movement duck into an alleyway about midway along the row of houses that face away from The City, looking out towards the dark flatlands.

  Then the movement was gone.

  I don’t know what it was, but it meant that there was something still wandering around in here, and that couldn’t be good.

  Must get moving. Must reach the portal and leave here. There are so many secrets, so much of the past, hidden in this dark place. The urge to go and explore them, see them for myself, is almost overwhelming, but the longer I stay here, the longer it will take me to find my mother.

  I don’t remember any glowing nasty things from JH’s diary.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 11:41

  It’s following me. I’m moving faster now, heading across the barren wasteland that JH described in his travels.

  The land beyond The City is eerie. The ground is hard and cracked, with no strange plants growing on it, but there is still some light. I thought of JH coming this way, and of my mother after him, and then wondered who else? Had others followed the trail? They must have, trying to find JH and the others.

  I can see the glow in the distance. It’s a long way behind me, but definitely following the same path as me. Something alive, or some strange phenomena that JH never encountered? I don’t know. JH didn’t really explore much over this area of The Corridor. He moved fast and went for the portal, and that means there could be all manner of things hidden here.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 12:13

  I lost it. At least I think I did.

  Maybe it’s just given up the chase.

  Moving as quickly as I can now, heading across the open ground inside The City, and need to get to the next portal. I'm hoping that is still open.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 12:24

  I spotted something in the distance as I was moving across the open ground. Somehow, I don't think that JH came exactly this way, which worries me a little, because I think he would have seen the rusted car at the same time as I did.

  It came into view a hundred yards ahead of me and maybe fifty to my right, a rusted hulk of junk just sitting there in the middle of a road. I veered away from the straight direction I was heading in and walked towards the thing.

  Very odd. The road goes for about a hundred yards in both directions away from the car, but then ends at the broken ground, almost as though just this small section of road was taken from whatever world it came from. I can’t imagine it belonging here. Nothing does.

  The car looked like it had been there for quite a long time, and it was covered in a thick coating of grime and dust, just like everything inside the bunker. That it would gather on this car, of all things, is very odd.

  As I got closer, I noticed that both of the back wheels had fallen off onto the road and lay a few feet away from the rusted vehicle. Most of the bodywork was black and crumbling, the rust long having eaten away at it.

  The boot was open at the back, and I edged forward, gun drawn, to peek inside. I could see a suitcase that was also open, lying in the back, and as I was about to touch it, I glanced further up the road and saw the first body.

  There were two of them; one near the front of the car and the other further out, maybe twenty yards away. I found the nearest one as I was walking towards the front of the car
, curious as to what lay in the road ahead. I hadn’t seen it as I approached because it was on the other side of the vehicle, lying near the front bumper.

  Both of the bodies were headless, and there was no sign of where the missing heads were.

  I got the creeps and moved out quickly. No way was I staying around there to find out what took heads from corpses. I may not have had to worry, as the corpses looked decades old, but I was taking no chances.

  I think it’s getting foggy here.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 13:28

  I had no idea that CutterJack’s place was so close to The City. After just one hour of walking across the broken ground, most of the while wondering if I’d lost my sense of direction, I saw the outline of the huge building that JH described. I was about ready to turn back, though, even after such a short stretch of time. The land between The City and the ruined train station was almost completely flat, with rocks scattered here and there, but there were no distinguishing details to indicate that I wasn’t just going around in circles.

  Seeing the ominous shape of the ruins ahead of me was a relief, but it also brought me to realise just how close I was to such an evil and dark place. I remembered JH’s description of the ruins, and as I approached, moving quietly between the crumbling archways, and saw the train for the first time, my stomach churned. I had never seen one of CutterJack’s monstrous creations, even though I’d seen plenty of other things, like Kre’esh and Shamblers, in my time. I’d still not seen one of the stitched together monstrosities. To think, I was actually standing in the place where he’d made many of them.

  I couldn’t help myself. I did look in the train, and maybe sometime I’ll speak of what I saw in there, but right now I can’t find the words.

  I tried to distract myself from what I’d seen, and a distant flickering of light did that for me. I jumped down into the recessed train track and up the other side, repeating this with the other platforms until I reached the other side. After what I’d just seen I tried to avert my eves from the contraptions scattered around the station but it was hard to do.

  Eventually I breathed a deep sigh as I came out at the other side of the building, wishing that I’d done just as JH had done – hell no, maybe I should just have gone all the way round. It probably would have been quicker.

  But my relief was short lived when a voice, just yards away, spoke, and nearly gave me a heart attack.

  “I think I’m dead,” it said.

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 14:51

  It took me a few minutes to stop heaving for breath. She scared the hell out of me, but when I’d finally stopped my heart from jumping out of my chest, I looked back up and saw a woman standing near the wall of the ruined building. She stared at me, frightened, lost, a glowing figure, almost a spectre, with no physical form. She was beautiful, in a pale and unhealthy kind of way, if that makes any sense.

  “I think I’m dead,” she repeated, staring out into the barren darkness.

  That voice was familiar.

  “Ilya?” I asked.

  It couldn’t be. Could it?

  She looked up.

  “Yes?” she answered, her focus not really on me, her eyes far from here.

  “Ilya?” I repeated. “Is that you?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Ilya. I was Ilya, but I think I’m not anymore.”

  I stared at her, shocked. She had made it through after all. She was…not alive, but still here. Then it occurred to me.

  Adler and Rudy.

  “You’re not dead,” I said. “You’re not. It’s the same as Rudy, in the book, it must be.”

  “Rudy,” she said.

  She turned back to me, her eyes focused now, some form of realisation starting to appear in the blank, lost expression. “A wendigo?” she asked. “Like Rudy?”

  I nodded. “It must be. You’re talking and you’re still here, you haven’t passed on to…wherever.”

  :: Record Date 02:07:4787 15:32

  Adler’s bicycle was perched at the bottom of the portal hill!

  I think, if I’m honest, that I was more elated to find the rusty old thing sitting there at the bottom of the hill of bones than I had been when I spotted the light from the still open portal.

  Over the years, dust or dirt of something must have settled on the hill, because although I can see ivory coloured things sticking out of it, most of it is overgrown with a kind of moss and covered thick with dirt. I was glad of that as I trudged up the hill.

  I climbed upwards, leaving Adler's bicycle where it was. Part of me wanted to take it with me, but after some thought I decided that it should stay. It was where it belonged, a relic of the past. I couldn’t resist touching it, sitting on it and holding the handles. So much history in such a simple thing.

  The hill with the portal on top was a lot bigger than JH described it. He said it was hard work to climb, but I got the impression it was only a few dozen feet to the top. This thing is a hundred feet, at least. I can’t believe it’s entirely made of bones. So many bones. Finally, puffed out and ready to take a break, I reached the top.

  I was standing in front of blazing red portal, glowing fiercely in the dark.

  I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I’ve actually made it to the portal to Riverfall and it is still there, still open, after all this time.

  That confirms that a lot of what I’ve been told is all lies. And my mother was lied to, even in the journals. It’s here, right where I’m standing, and it’s still open.

  I turned back, looking at the figure standing a few feet behind me.

  “Are you coming or staying here?” I asked Ilya, hoping that she would come with me. Even if she is a little odd, even more so now she is there, a real thing, sort of, rather than a voice in my head or a cloud of gas, I think I like having someone to talk to.

  She looked at me for a moment, glanced back towards the darkness behind us, then turned back and smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile, and damn it if she wasn’t even more beautiful.

  “Let’s go find out what’s on the other side, soldier,” she said.

  So we did.

  It’s now been two days since Ilya and I stepped through the portal, and I have a lot to tell you.

  Continued in book 5…

  Click here to get book 5 on amazon and continue the story!

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  Thanks! – Glynn

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to all of the Jameses – Julia, for your patience and constant encouragement, and my kids, for just being you.

  To my parents and my brother for not being too surprised that I write crazy fiction, and for telling me it’s cool.

  To Bill, Sara, Billy, Jim & Jean for taking me seriously and never doubting that I could actually do this, and for demanding signed copies when I thought that whole idea was daft.

  About the Author

  GLYNN JAMES, born in Wellingborough, England in 1972, is a bestselling author of dark sci-fi novels.

  He has an obsession with anything to do with zombies, Cthulhu mythos, and post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction and films, all of which began when he started reading HP Lovecraft and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend back when he was eight years old.

  In addition to co-authoring the bestselling ARISEN books (over 400,000 copies sold), he is the author of the bestselling DIARY OF THE DISPLACED series.

  For More Info

  www.glynnjames.co.uk

  Copyright

  First published 2011-2019 by Glynn James

  Copyright © Glynn James

  The right of Glynn James to be identified as the author of th
is work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.