Diary of the Displaced (Entire Novel)
Page 17
I stepped through and stumbled into daylight.
I staggered, moving forward a few steps, struggling to grasp my new surroundings. The skeletal remains of massive, derelict buildings rose on either side of me. The ground was broken, once a road, but now grass and weeds broke the tarmac.
It was day, but it was still dark. Above me, the sun shone through only small gaps in the grey clouds that drifted overhead at a speed that was astonishing. A cold blast of wind gusted down the open street, and I had to brace against it to stop myself from falling over.
Rubble, broken windows and burned out vehicles littered the street, and not just this street. I was standing in a dead end, with a solid wall behind me, except for the hole through which Rudy and Adler now stepped. The street stretched on and on, and beyond that were more ruined streets, more ruined buildings and vehicle wrecks, from the seat of the car next to me stared the weathered, cold, bleach-boned face of someone who had been dead for a long time.
An entire city lying derelict, ruined and dead.
A noise behind me startled me, and I turned to see the maw begin to flood through the hole, pacing down the street, spreading out, not stopping, so that the rest of their kind could escape through the door that we had opened. After a few minutes, they stopped coming through.
DogThing was by my side.
It’s time to close it now, said the voice in my head.
I looked down at DogThing.
Before he escapes too. Before they come.
Then I knew.
The voice in my head was DogThing, and he had been speaking to me all this time.
He looked back towards the door and started to growl. Other maw nearby span around and crouched down low, baring their teeth, ready to spring at whatever was coming from the other side, whatever was about to escape with us.
He comes, said DogThing.
I could hear the thud of heavy feet on the wooden platform, approaching fast. But he never got there in time.
I reached for the door. There was no handle to pull, so I grabbed the edge and pushed, quickly taking my hand away. The last thing I saw through the opening was CutterJack, a few feet away, reaching out with both hands, his one eye wide with anger or fear, running towards us. Behind him were his lizard pets, many of them, tearing along the wooden boards as fast as they could go, each of them with the look of death in their eyes, and beyond that a wave of moaning and screaming.
The cries of countless tortured souls.
I swore that I heard CutterJack scream just as the door closed and vanished, leaving a solid brick wall in front of me. I staggered back, expecting the wall to collapse in front of me, and CutterJack to come bursting through with his lizardcats and an army of zombies, but there was nothing.
It was over.
I turned, seeking the others, Adler and Rudy. They were a few feet away, staring up at the towering ruins that stretched on as far as I could see.
“Something terrible must have happened to this place,” said Adler.
“I don’t remember,” I replied.
I turned back to DogThing and knelt down. This time he came forward and nuzzled his head in my lap. I ruffled his fur.
“You’ve been talking to me all along, haven’t you?”
Yes, but I don’t think you always heard me.
“Why did you help me? Why did you help us?”
Because I’m your friend.
“My friend? I don’t remember.”
I know. It was after you fell, after we found Nua’lath’s device. I didn’t understand why you weren’t breaking it. That was why we went there. That was what we came here for.
“Nua’lath?”
CutterJack. He goes by many names. That’s what you always said.
“So I’ve known you all along, right from the beginning? That’s why you came to me in the junkyard?”
Yes. I came here with you, to destroy the device. I’m your guard, your companion. But you became something different, something I couldn’t understand. After you looked into the device, you changed. You weren’t you. There was someone else there. I was frightened.
“You’ve always been with me haven’t you? I just can’t remember why?”
Yes. You raised me from when I was a puppy.
“I raised you? I wish I could remember.”
Ever since I can remember, I’ve followed you.
“But the other maw, where are they from?”
I’d never seen another one of my kind. They were trapped in there, in Nua’lath’s prison. I found them. They didn’t like me at the start, but they became my friends, and I told them that if they helped me, if they helped you, you would help them escape that place forever.
“Do you have a name, other than DogThing?”
No. That’s what you always called me.
I stood up and looked around at the world we had returned to. Somehow I knew that although we had escaped back to where we had started, this place was no more my home than the prison we had left behind. It should be familiar, but my memories still haven’t returned.
We found a building not far down the street to camp up in for the night that still had windows, and a door that could be shut.
Day 39
I slept well for the first time in weeks, and woke up to a sound that in my memory, I’d never even heard before. I looked through the dirt crusted window and saw that outside, Rudy and Adler were listening, smiling, so I opened the door and joined them.
A grin crossed my face as I felt the warmth of the sun. High up on the tops of the building across the street was a single nest of birds. I didn’t know what sort of bird they were. One of them was perched on a ledge, just below the nest, singing.
This is the last page in this journal. I’ve ran out of space to write for now, until I find another book. I’m sure I will soon.
So much still to discover and so many questions still unanswered, all locked away in my own mind.
There is a whole new place here for me to explore. Even as I look around, there are things that are somehow familiar, yet my own mind has locked it all away. I should be afraid, like I was when I first came round in the dark, in The Corridor. But I’m not alone this time. I’ve got Rudy and Adler, and I’ve got DogThing. It’s amazing how much fear is lessened when you have friends to look out for you.
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More Writing by Glynn james
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Chasing Spirits (Dark fantasy Novel)
Amazon UK Amazon USA Smashwords Nook (Sample available on feedbooks)
There is an old man sitting in a bed on Angel ward, telling stories. He says he has to tell someone, because he is dying. He says he doesn't care if you believe the tales are true or not, because he is not sure that half of them ever happened at all. Reg Weldon claims that he has seen things that would make your spine shiver and your skin crawl. He claims a lot of things…
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The Last to Fall (Dark Fantasy Novella)
Amazon UK Amazon USA Smashwords (Sample available on feedbooks)
In 1926 Joseph Dean was just getting ready to hang himself when the man named Joshua stepped into his cafe and changed his life. He made Joe an offer - one that would mean travelling through the door to another world to find something that had been lost for nearly two hundred years. Joe would discover a lot more than that in the years that followed.
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Whispers of the Displaced (Short Story Collection)
Amazon UK Amazon USA Smashword (Sample available on feedbooks)
A companion book to Diary of the displaced - a collection of seven Paranormal Fantasy and Horror Short stories * Or both novels are available in a bundle Dark Journals (Novels & Short Stories Bundle) www.amazon.com www.amazon.co.uk www.smashwords.com
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More about my writing at www.glynnjames.co.uk
From the same author on Feedbooks
The Last to Fall (Sample) (2011) In 1926 Joseph Dean was just getting ready to hang himself when the man named Joshua stepped into his cafe
and changed his life.
He made Joe an offer - one that would mean travelling through the door to another world to find something that had been lost for nearly two hundred years.
Joe would discover a lot more than that in the years that followed.
The Last to Fall is a Dark Fantasy novella of 20000 words and the first in the series of Joe's travels in another world.
For anyone who has read Chasing Spirits, this is a chance to hear a familiar voice once more.
* * *
Chasing Spirits (Sample) (2011) There is an old man sitting in a bed on Angel ward, telling stories. He says he has to tell someone, because he is dying. He says he doesn't care if you believe the tales are true or not, because he is not sure that half of them ever happened at all.
Reg Weldon claims that he has seen things that would make your skin crawl.
He claims a lot of things...
"I was born four seconds before the strike of midnight, on the 31st December 1900. As far as I know that makes me the last person to be born in that century. My mother, god bless her soul, she may well have been the first person to die in the century that followed, because no sooner had I taken my first breath, than she took her last."
Chasing Spirits is a Paranormal Fantasy novel
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Chione (Whispers of the Displaced) (2011) For Diary of the Displaced readers
Was it really cutterjack that went down the manhole in Charleston Way?
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Fade (Whispers of the Displaced) (2011) For Diary of the Displaced Readers
What connects our world to the otherworld? Does everyone arrive through a "door"?
It would seem not...
www.feedbooks.com
Food for the mind