George sat up and struck Andrew across the face. Hard. It immediately started to turn an angry red, but it did the trick. Andrew was silenced. 'I told you in there to keep it together,' he hissed, 'You're no good to me if you're going to fall apart every two minutes. Don't forget, I signed up for this and you're not the only one with someone missing.' He shot a glance towards Thomas. 'I asked the boy to learn as much about this gate as possible. Sure, he wasn't there exactly when we needed him, but he came good in the end. We are all safe and live to fight another day. So keep it together. Ok!'
Andrew, still visibly shaken from the blow, answered timidly. 'Yeah, sure. I'm ok, and I'm sorry Thomas.'
Thomas nodded. 'No problem. I'm sorry I wasn't there.'
'Ok, great,' said George, 'As they say, we are back in the room. Literally. What have you learnt about this gate here?'
Thomas was glad to be off the subject of his truancy and back on more solid ground.'Well,' he said, 'The good news is that those blue lights are on the same power loop as this gate. That power combined with this switch, means we can keep the gate open for as long as we like.'
'Ok, useful,' said Andrew, 'What's the bad news?'
'The bad news,' said Thomas, 'Is by using this second switch, it looks like I can change the gates...destination. The only problem is, whilst I was waiting for you. I found this.'
He activated the upper switch and opened the gate. Before the screen had fully materialized, he toggled a lower switch a handful of times, changing the blurred image on the screen with each click. He stopped toggling and allowed the image to settle. It wasn't the dark blue colouring that caught their attention, nor the huge concrete structure that loomed ominously over the entire scene; it was the bottom half of the screen where their eyes were drawn. Laying motionless and still quite clearly attached to its owner's legs, were a pair of size twelve sports shoes.
'Shit,' said Karen.
Part 3
Elida
1
By her own admission, Elida Johnson was not a nice person. Despite - or maybe because of - her soft, middle class, suburban upbringing, she hit the self destruct button at an early age. She grew bored of school very quickly and in her early teenage years, spent more time skipping class than actually attending. Her increasingly frustrated parents were at a loss, receiving letters home on a weekly basis.
None of the normal parental tactics worked and in the last three years of her school life, she was moved six times. During this time, she had been arrested on numerous occasions and, had stumbled home way past her curfew, drunk, and out of her face, on too many times to mention. Her exasperated mother had tried confrontation and even intervention, but on each occasion had been met with torrents of abuse and absolutely zero change in behavior. Coming from a reasonably well to do portion of South East England, having a 'wild child' tag to one of your siblings was a horrendous embarrassment.
At a loss as to what to do, the subject of 'kicking her out' or as her father put it, 'letting her find her own way' had started to raise its ugly head and then Elida surprised them all by smashing her GCSE's with six grade A's and six A*'s. For a child that hardly attended school this was nothing short of a miracle. Her parents then labelled her a 'misunderstood genius' and following her one known interest (graphic horror movies) enrolled her in a media studies course at the local college.
The greater freedom the college timetable allowed caused an even further downturn in her behavior, resulting in even more letters home and threats to kick her off the courses she was enrolled in. But, two years later and with her parents at a wit's end, she pulled her second rabbit out of the hat and aced the three A-Level exams she sat. Her grades were that good she had the choice of any university and plumped for a continuation of her cinematic interests and enrolled in a Media Studies degree at the University of Brighton.
This was where the wheels really came off.
Her parents set her up in the best student accommodation their money could buy; a shared apartment block situated partway between the city centre and the campus. Being in such close vicinity to all a modern university could provide and a cultural hub of a city, was all Elida needed to completely go to town.
At the age of nineteen with a potential bright future stretched out before her, she hit rock bottom.
It was drugs of course. It's always drugs. She had crashed out on alcohol from early on and the university parties only fueled this. But after every binge (some lasting weeks as opposed to weekends) she’d managed to bounce back to a kind of normality; at least a normality that prepared her for the next binge. At college she had also dabbled in the softer drugs, with many a day lost in a weed smoke daze. But none of it really touched the itch she had inside. The itch she needed to take her all the way down.
The partying became more extreme and so did the pill popping. Taking anything from uppers to downers, she still craved the ultimate buzz. She was a rich kid in a rich town and the pushers stuck to her like flies around shit. When her parents saw where she was heading, they pulled the plug on her financial resources, but it made no difference, she paid for the drugs in the only way she could; with sex.
Christmas 2016 was her lowest point. Addicted to heroine, which, she now injected rather than smoked, her days were spent sleeping in her now disgustingly grimy student accommodation. She had three regular pushers and she slept with all three of them for her supply; two of them using her pad occasionally to carry out their business. On one particular bleak January morning in the winter of 2017 she woke, still stoned and hung-over from a non-stop weekend bender. She fell out of bed where one of her pusher 'boyfriends' still slept and stumbled to the bathroom. She pissed, which for some reason stung like hell and checked herself in the smear of a mirror.
She wasn't stupid. She knew where she was heading. She was barely twenty, but her reflection looked more like forty. She wore black makeup from a 'Goth' look she had dabbled in, but the rings under her eyes weren't the kind you could wipe off. She had an ugly bruise on her right cheek with no memory of where it came from and her hair was dyed jet black, shaved on one side with dark blue streaks on the longer side. She couldn't remember her last meal and by the looks of her protruding ribs and almost non existent breasts, it was probably more likely to be days rather than hours.
She turned away from her hideous reflection as a strange nausea overcame her. Without control, she vomited down her front; chunks and bile splattering her naked feet. Rather than react in disgust, she turned back to the mirror to stare at her tired, pale features on her tired, pale face. Amongst the haze, a brief moment of clarity came to her and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
She wanted to die.
She made her way back to the bedroom where the pusher (Matt? Mike?) still slept. He had a long line of drool from one side of his mouth and by the way he slept, she guessed it would be hours before he woke. She worked herself round to his side of the bed and picked up the dirty supply bag he'd poorly tried to hide. It chinked as she lifted it, but was far lighter than she expected. Her heart sank as her rummaging couldn't find what she was looking for and then, scrunched at the far bottom of the bag, was her prize. She lifted out the clear plastic bag of slightly brown powder and as quietly as she could, crept back to the bathroom.
Like a seasoned addict, in no time she had cooked up two small syringes. Just one syringe was more than twice as much as she had ever shot, but if she was going to this right, she wanted to do it in style. Besides, the thought of knowing the pusher (Mark?) would wake up to find a dead body and all of his stash gone, brought a smile to her face.
She knew she was wicked. She knew she was cruel. But who gave a fuck, she would be dead soon.
As it turned out, she never got round to the second syringe. The first dose was so strong, she was unconscious on the bathroom floor with the needle still in her arm. Unfortunately for Elida she didn't die. She came very close, but in the seconds between life and death, she crossed over to Shael.
2
She woke the instant she crossed and it was the strangest feeling. Not the crossing, that didn't have any sensation except for a slight popping of the ears and not really the fact she seemed to be lying on a bed of tall grass. The strange feeling came from the clarity. The cleanliness. After years of suffering at the hands of countless substances; her body being pumped full of nearly every chemical known to man. The feeling of waking and actually feeling herself was odd and not unpleasant.
She sat and surveyed her surroundings. In all directions, as far as she could see, was this tall, tanned grass swaying in a cooling breeze. The ground undulated and the area where she sat was slightly higher, giving her a perfect 360 panorama. There were sporadic white barked trees dotting the landscape and apart from a few wisps of cloud, the scene was of perfect tranquility; quite the opposite to her over-active mind.
She knew she wasn't dead. That was for certain. How she knew and how she knew this wasn't the afterlife wasn't clear, but the clarity of thought made it hard to imagine she wasn't alive. She also had quite vivid memories of where she had come from and what she had tried to do. She looked at her arm, but there was no syringe or for that matter any needle marks. She stood, expecting the nausea from earlier to return, but it didn't. Despite everything that had happened; she felt good.
Not a feeling she was used to at all.
Noticing her feet were bare, but not particularly caring, she walked down the slight incline to the nearest tree. In places, the white bark had been stripped away by some clawed animal and the lack of foliage on the branches would suggest it had been used recently as a feeding station. She passed the tree and walked up a second incline. There were mountains in the far distance, but far to far away to be reached in a day. Nearer than the mountains, but still a good few hours away, there shimmered a giant expanse of water. Between where she currently was and this lake was a number of thicker clusters of trees. Without anything better to do and curious to learn more of her strange discovery, she set off towards the lake.
It took her the best part of two hours to reach the first cluster of trees and by this point it had grown noticeably darker. The wind had also picked up and the strange pyjama like outfit she had found herself in once crossing, was doing a poor job at protecting her from the cold. The walk had allowed her the opportunity to think a little deeper on her current situation; again something she hadn't been able to do for a long time. She'd had hallucinogenic trips before and knew this wasn't one of those. She also knew that her attempted suicide and overdose had been the cause of her crossing. But why? And where was she? More pressing was how she was going to find a way back.
The light was really starting to close in, so she decided that walking any further was probably not a great idea. She sat with her back to a tree, as sheltered as she could from the freshening wind. Her stomach gave an empty growl and for the first time she started to become concerned. She was amazed at how far she had come. Just a few hours ago she was ready to die and say goodbye to her car crash of a life. But now, after spending time in this weird, but intriguing world, she was sure of one thing.
She now wanted to live.
The problem was how. She had no food. Water was days away and with darkness about to fall, she was at the mercy of the elements and whatever host of wild animals this place could conjure up. Even with a clearer perspective, she was wafer thin and if it got any colder the night could be very uncomfortable. She pulled her knees up under her chin and huddled down against the wind. It could not have been more than three hours since she woke in this strange world, but despite this, she soon felt herself dozing. She fought it for a few minutes, but it was no good; sleep came too easy.
She woke gradually and painfully. The clarity she'd felt was gone, replaced by a fuzzy headed daze and an excruciating pain in her stomach. She was no longer cold, in fact she was no longer huddled under a tree. She was in a bed with the smell of chemicals irritating her nose.
Her eyes opened on a darkly lit hospital room with a monitor beeping softly in the corner. She could feel the cannula in her arm and her mouth was so dry it was as if days had passed since her last drink. There was a sleeping figure in the chair beside the bed which stirred at the sound of her movement.
'Decided to come back then, did you?' said her mother.
'Where am I?'
'You're in a hospital. A very expensive hospital I might add and if it wasn't for your fathers insistence, you wouldn't be in a nice place like this.'
'How did I get here?'
'One of your...friends. Remember those? Scraped you off the floor of your flat and got you rushed to A&E. They called us and said you'd taken an overdose. They didn't tell us you'd become...this.'
'I didn't think you cared.'
'Fuck you, Elida!' her mother spat, 'We're your parents for god's sake, of course we care. We're going to get you all fixed up. Get you the best help we can.'
'So you're little girl isn't an embarrassment anymore. So you're dirty little secret is kept behind closed doors. Is that why?'
'Don't say that. Don't you dare say that! We've given you everything and how do you repay us?'
'Just go mum,' she said, 'Leave me alone. I'm tired.'
'No. You don't get to do that. You don't get to just send me away. We've been here at your side for four days. At one point the doctors were pretty sure you were going to die! You were in a coma! So, I'm sorry, but you don't get to tell us what to do,' her face was flushed and she began to cry.
Elida allowed her mother to calm. 'You said I've been here for four days. How can that be?'
'You've been here for four days. God knows how long you were in that flat. We thought we lost you.' She started crying again, but Elida paid no attention. Four days? More if you include the time it took to find her. Her trip to the other world had seemed virtually instantaneous and had only been a few hours. But four days? And in a coma? It made no sense.
'Where's dad?' she said.
'At home sleeping I expect. He's been here every night since they transferred you. You scared him you know. How did it get to this, Elida?'
'It just did, mum,' she said, 'It just did.' She rolled on her side and moments later heard the door click as her mother left. She couldn't believe she'd lost four days and she couldn't stop thinking of the strange world she'd found herself in. It could have all been a huge hallucination or even a near death experience. But it didn't feel that way. It felt real, more real than the shitty existence she had. She longed to go back there. To sample the pure air, to lose herself in a world devoid of any other humans.
As she dozed, she dreamt of the gently swaying grass and the strange white barked trees. She dreamt of running barefoot down the rolling hills with those mountain peaks far off in the distance. She was on the cusp of sleep, the part where there is no coming back from, and she crossed again.
She knew where she was immediately. Not sitting up against the tree, but at the top of the first hill she'd crossed to. Everything was exactly as she remembered, even down to the angle of the late afternoon sun and the faint wisps of cloud in the sky. It was as if not a minute had passed since her last visit.
'Weird,' she said out loud, 'Fucking weird.'
Rather than exploring, this time she tried a little experiment. She sat crossed legged on the incline, closed her eyes and imagined the dim hospital room. There was that same ear-popping sensation followed by the beeping monitor and the chemical smell. She was back, and what was more, hardly any time had passed since she crossed. 'Cool!' she said and this time when she fell asleep, she stayed put.
She remained in the hospital for two more nights before - at her father's insistence - moving back to her old room at the family house. She could tell her mother liked this no more than she, but for now, she went along with it. Her father had visited her for hours during her hospital stay. They had made pleasant small talk, but the majority of the time they just sat in silence. Not once did he ask her why or want to know anymore about her suicide attempt
; which was exactly what she needed. In contrast, her mother only came once to bring a change of clothing.
Her room was still decorated and set out the same as when she had lived there during her college years. She would like to think they were harking back to a more innocent time, but considering her wild side had been well and truly embedded by then, they were kind of missing the point.
Her parents put rigid curfews in place and were somewhat taken aback when Elida agreed to them without argument. They suggested a convalescence period to get her off the drugs and cleaned up, which she again agreed to. They also insisted on having evening meals together; an awkward ritual that apart from a few pleasantries was morbidly silent. For the rest of the time, she was pretty much left to her own devices, which suited Elida down to the ground. The hours she spent in her room supposedly sleeping and going 'cold turkey', were spent in her strange new world where any physical effects of her substance abuse were thankfully muted. To the outside world, she was oddly cooperative, but inside she had found a new addiction.
The more she crossed the easier it became. Very quickly she found just by closing her eyes and picturing the world, she would be there in an instant. When the excruciating stomach cramps and cold sweats hit, she just laid down and 'pop' she was gone. She also discovered something even more intriguing; with a little imagination she could actually change the world she crossed to. Tiny changes at first, but as she grew more confident she found she could bend the world at will. The savannah 'scene' became an alpine landscape which morphed into a lakeside retreat. She had a few missteps which required her to hastily cross back, but all in all, she loved her time playing god.
She settled on a remote tropical beach setting with a tiny shack placed just on the water's edge. The temperature was just right and she spent her time either swimming in the crystal clear waters or walking along the never-ending shoreline. After a day at the beach she would cross back for the evening meal ritual before heading to bed early; usually to sleep under the stars in her secret world.
Meadowbank: A dark fantasy thriller (The Shael Chronicles Book 2) Page 13