by Sean Platt
“What?” Nancy said as Sarah’s students started to scream, scatter, and run toward the door.
More shots, then a sharp pain split through the center of Sarah’s chest as her body slammed against the wall.
She looked down, stunned to see the small sea of crimson quickly spreading to ocean across the front of her aqua blue blouse.
Oh God.
I’m going to die today.
As Sarah’s world blurred at its edges, she thought of Emma sitting in her classroom.
Emma and her little crush.
Oh God, please keep her safe . . .
Sarah’s lids fell closed.
Everything went black.
Sarah woke in darkness, in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room.
The room was cold, and hummed with the sound of circulated air.
A soft blue light above and behind her bed killed just enough of the surrounding black for Sarah to see the raw outline of a few blurry shapes: the bed, a chair and small table, and curtains. Two doors, one which presumably led to a bathroom. The other likely led to a hallway.
How did I get in a hotel room?
Where’s Emma?
Her head was foggy, as if she’d been sleeping forever. She felt like she’d been drugged or something.
Oh God, did someone drug and rape me?
Sarah sat up in the bed, searching the room for a sign of whoever the hell had brought her there. But she was alone. She didn’t feel like she’d had sex, willing or otherwise. Nor did she feel any pain, other than a dull ache in her bones.
It was then that Sarah remembered Roger Heller and the bullet which pierced her chest.
She looked down, and realized that the shirt she was wearing wasn’t hers. It was silky, and long like a gown, all one piece, ending at her knees. Sarah pulled the neck of the gown down enough to see that the flesh of her chest was perfectly pale and smooth, no wounds. Not even a scar.
Am I in a hospital?
She stood, wobbly, bracing herself against the bed to find her balance. She wanted to cry, “Hello” but didn’t. Almost couldn’t. Something in the back of her mind warned her to stay silent.
She made her way toward the door which seemed to lead out of the room. Inches from the door, Sarah saw that there was no doorknob.
What the hell?
She looked along the side of the door for a button or something, anything that could open the door, but found nothing.
She turned back and went to the other door.
It slid open in a whisper upon her approach, the thin alloy frame of the door sliding into a recess in the wall. A soft blue light illuminated a bathroom on the other side.
Sarah stepped into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, then closer at her gown. It reminded her of a hospital gown, except it didn’t tie in back. She hiked up the gown, sat on the toilet and peed. She stood, and the toilet flushed automatically.
Nice bathroom.
Where the hell am I?
It had been a while since Sarah had been to Conway Medical Center, but she wouldn’t doubt if the hospital had this kind of cutting edge fancy stuff. Weird, though, that the doors didn’t have knobs. Perhaps it was a way to keep patients from wandering off at nighttime.
Sarah wondered if it was, in fact, nighttime. The room was dark, but the lights were off and the curtains drawn. Any room would be dark under such circumstances. Sarah walked from the bathroom toward the curtain, figuring she’d see if it was in fact, nighttime. Or perhaps she could figure out where she was, by looking for landmarks.
She parted the curtains and gasped at the impossibility.
Sarah was staring at nothing but ink black sky, a billion stars, and the big blue marble of the planet Earth floating below.
TO BE CONTINUED…
In WhiteSpace Season Two
coming this winter.
* * * *
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* * * *
Author’s Note
When I was around 11 or 12, I got my first television.
We had a TV before then — my parents weren’t cruel — but this was MY first TV. For MY bedroom.
It was a black and white set, with a screen much smaller than the laptop I have now. It didn’t come with a cable box. Just two antennae — one for VHF and one for UHF broadcast signals. I had less than 12 channels total to choose from, but for the next four years or so, this box would be my lifeline to entertainment.
At the time, UHF stations were trying to compete with cable, and were showing uncut movies. This is decades before the FCC got in a tizzy over Janet Jackson’s nipple melting the minds of millions of young people during the Super Bowl. While my parents wouldn’t allow me to watch R-rated movies, they had no idea what was available on regular TV.
So I’d stay up late at night, watching scary movies they’d never let me watch in the living room.
Usually, I wound up watching old horror movies from when my mom was a kid, fitting, given I was watching on a black and white set. Other times, I’d get lucky and catch a newer movie like Halloween or Halloween 2. Newer movies meant lots of violence, and sometimes even . . . boobies!
When I was a kid, you had to work to find nudity! You had to hope your dad had some smutty magazines, have access to the pay cable stations, or a TV with a good UHF antenna.
Because here’s the thing about stations broadcasting on the UHF stations — they had crappy signals. I can’t tell you how many movies and TV shows I watched through snow. Oftentimes, the signal would start off strong, and then halfway into the movie, the weather would change, and the signal would go to shit. It was an exercise in frustration to be watching a movie and miss the ending because the signal cut out.
Maybe that’s why I love tormenting you with cliffhangers.
Anyway, there is a point to all of this, beyond 11 year old me sneaking peeks at snowy boobies, I swear.
Where I lived, there were three UHF stations that showed uncut movies. Then there were two more UHF stations that aired PBS, which also showed unedited movies sometimes, in addition to the very excellent Tom Baker-era Doctor Who episodes! And then there were two Spanish language TV stations, which seemed to show either really old movies, telenovelas, or horrible game shows where the prize always seemed to be something really lame, like a new toaster.
But then there were these other stations . . .
If I turned the dial (yeah, kids, there used to be a time when TVs didn’t have remotes!) just right — between two UHF channels — I’d sometimes pick up on stations from far away.
If the weather was right, and I turned the dial just right, I could sometimes pick up stations from hundreds of miles away which I’d never even heard of. Oftentimes, I had to be creative to pick up these signals, twisting metal coat-hangers just so, and attaching them to the UHF antenna.
As a kid before the age of internet or a million cable channels, watching distant channels was nothing short of awesome! I didn’t care what was on the channel, I’d watch it. Even if it was an old episode of Bonanza. Something about watching
a channel from far away — a channel I wasn’t supposed to be able to pick up — seemed weird, wonderful, and full of magic.
But sometimes, late at night, when everybody else in the house was asleep, and the only light in the darkness was from the glow of my tiny TV, I saw things.
There were times when the broadcast signals would bleed over one another, and I’d pick up ghosted images or audio from another channel. Innocuous broadcasts suddenly became mysterious, as my overactive imagination went to work, turning these images and sounds into messages I’d accidentally intercepted.
Messages not meant for me.
And that’s when the first seeds were sewn for WhiteSpace.
While this is a story that Sean and I created together — much like we created the post-apocalyptic serial, Yesterday’s Gone — there’s a creepiness underlying it all which was borne years ago in the bedroom of a young kid just trying to see something his parents didn’t want him to see . . .
or pick up on distant messages from far away.
Thank you for reading,
David W. Wright
* * * *
SPECIAL BONUS — SNEAK PEEK OF YESTERDAY’S GONE: SEASON THREE
And now, a sneak peek at the highly anticipated return of Season Three of the post apocalyptic serial thriller, Yesterday’s Gone.
If you’ve not yet read Yesterday’s Gone Seasons 1 & 2, do NOT read any further, or you’re gonna see some major SPOILERS!!
You have been warned.
YESTERDAY’S GONE: EPISODE 13
CHAPTER ONE: BORICIO WOLFE
Well, this is some beer battered bullshit.
The second the old fucker pulled the trigger, Luca’s memories started spinning through Boricio’s head — how Luca and Will had met, how Will had comforted him after his dog died, plus dozens of others — like a bad acid trip, blended with anger, betrayal, and confusion.
Boricio shook his head, trying to flush the memories so he could deal with the immediacy of the old man with the gun.
“What the fuck?” Boricio said, raising the shotgun he looted from one of the Sanctu-fairy fucksticks, and drawing aim at Will, pointing the barrel right between his eyes.
Will acted like Boricio wasn’t even there, dropping his pistol to the snow and staring down at Luca. “I’m so sorry,” he said, falling to Luca and cradling the man-kid’s head in his hands as blood pooled beneath him, spreading like an angry dark stain in the snow.
“How do you get off swinging a sack of sorry, you Santa Claus looking pile of shit? You’re the dumbdick mother fucker who shot him!” Boricio stepped forward to hit the old man, but stopped when he nearly lost his balance.
His head was still dizzy from Luca being inside, and odd as a smiling bitch who wasn’t asking for crap, Boricio still felt a lingering need to protect him. He wasn’t sure what sorta voodoo bullshit Luca had done in his head, but he’d definitely done something.
The man-kid had said he’d “fix” Boricio, but what in the fuckall did that even mean? What was there to fix? Ain’t no one ever had any complaints about the way Boricio worked before. At least no one still breathing.
Boricio took a step closer to Will. “He said he fixed me. You wanna tell me what in the hell that means? I’m guessing by the way you tore in here like Steve McQueen, you have a pretty good goddamn idea.”
Will looked up at Boricio, eyes watering, as if he were going to break down and cry. “I don’t know. But you’re a killer, aren’t you?”
Boricio showed Will all his teeth. “I’m a heartbeat adjuster. What in the fuck does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
“You haven’t killed me yet,” Will said, an odd smile crossing his face, like one of those fuckers who thinks his IQ has another digit to keep his shit from stinking.
Boricio stepped forward, craving a pull of the trigger, and barely resisting the urge.
See how he smiles with half a face.
“No, not yet,” Boricio growled.
Will said nothing, staring down at Luca’s closed eyes. Then he looked up to Boricio and said about the dumbest fucking thing that could’ve come from his mouth, “He’s dying.”
“No fucking shit!” Boricio said, and this time he couldn’t resist. He swung the barrel of the shotgun and hit Will hard in the forehead, knocking back, squealing like this little piggie in pain.
Boricio looked down at Luca, confused as an odd new feeling flooded his body, filling him with something he couldn’t remember feeling before — sympathy.
Fixed me? More like he took out my batteries!
Fuck.
Boricio felt tears welling in his eyes.
What the fuck is this shit?
He turned away, wiping his eyes. The anger returned, and he shoved the barrel of his shotgun at Will’s head.
“Why the hell did you shoot him, you Sasquatch looking pile of shit? He trusted you!”
“I had to. The dreams told me.”
“Dreams? If I did everything my dreams told me to, Brad Pitt’s head would’ve been an ashtray on my coffee table watching me bang Angelina sunrise to sunset. The fuck you talking about? Start speaking English, or I’m gonna shut you up permanently.”
“Tell me. Did he try to heal the others?” Will asked.
“Yeah, a couple. But he said it’s not working now.”
“Yes,” Will nodded, “that’s what I saw in the dreams.”
“You wanna stop speaking in ancient Chinese secret and tell me what the fuck you’re goin’ on about, old man?”
“You can save him,” Will said. “In fact, you will save him.”
Boricio laughed.
“Me? Save him? Clearly you’re new to this program, hombre. I ain’t the fucking hero. I don’t save the day.”
Will shook his head, pointing back at Luca. Blood was spilling from his mouth.
“Hurry,” Will said.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?!” Boricio asked, annoyed, and suddenly feeling a need to try and save the man-kid. “Tell me what to do!”
“Put your hands on him,” Will said, his voice rising in anger or urgency. “Like you saw him do with the others.”
Boricio was going to argue, but something in his head, maybe instinct, probably remnants of Luca playing puppet master, pushed Boricio to a kneel beside Luca. He saw what to do next, like a memory.
How do you have a memory of shit that ain’t happened?
Boricio felt like he was on another trip like when he drank that shit back in the rich fuck’s house.
He leaned down and put his hands on either side of Luca’s face, feeling warmth like liquid blanket spreading through his limbs and into his fingers. And then from his fingers and into the man-kid.
Boricio stared at his hands, as if they were being moved by another. He wondered again what in Hell’s sweet honeypot the man-kid had done. He had fixed him, but he’d sure as shit done something else, too.
The man-kid’s eyes shot open like someone had flipped a switch inside him, and he started coughing up blood then sucking at air and gasping for breath.
Boricio started to pull away, but couldn’t. His hands were locked onto Luca, as some sorta whatinthefuck kept flowing from inside of him and into the man-kid. Warmth turned to pain and started shooting like a scattergun through the all of Boricio’s body, as he clenched his teeth and tried to work up the strength to break the connection.
Let go!
Finally, Boricio was able to wrench himself away. He fell back into the snow writhing in pain.
Luca rose from the dirt, staring at Will, who was still sitting on the ground from when Boricio knocked him down.
“Why?” Luca asked, his voice caught between confusion and anger.
“I’m sorry,” Will said, wiping a tear. “It was the only way.”
“Only way for what?” Luca asked.
“For that,” Will said, pointing at Boricio, rising to his feet, body feeling like it was on fire.
“Why you all looking at
me like that?” Boricio asked.
Luca’s eyes were wide, as if he were staring at a two-headed demon sucking on a dick made of fire. Luca opened his mouth, but said nothing.
“What the fuck you looking at?” Boricio growled.
“I’m so sorry,” Luca said.
“Sorry? For what?” Boricio asked, confused, and feeling another new feeling — fear. He reached up to touch his face, but his hands were buzzing, too numbed to know what he was touching.
He looked around, then saw the headlights of Will’s car shining on them. He stepped past Will and Luca, moving toward the car as fast as he could despite the 15 bags of fuckall that had slapped him in the face.
Boricio reached the car, driver’s side door still open, then bent to see his reflection in the mirror.
Oh God.
He looked like he’d aged a decade, maybe more.
“What the hell did you do to me?!” Boricio roared, spinning around.
“I don’t know,” Luca said, surprising Boricio by not stepping back. “I swear.”
I should shoot this pair of fucks right here, right now, and get the hell out of Dodge.
But Boricio couldn’t leave.
Something was holding him here.
The need to stay with the man-kid sang in the same sweet tune of instinct that had fueled the engine of Boricio’s entire life. He screamed in frustration, grabbed his shotgun off the ground, and pointed it at Will.
“Talk! Now!”
Will shook his head, “I don’t know any more than you do. Only what I saw.”
Boricio curled his lip and gritted his teeth. “Then tell me what you saw.”
Will looked at the ground and swallowed, “Whatever’s in Luca. Whatever makes him special. He transferred that to you. I had to make sure you gave it back.”
Boricio wanted to shoot the old bastard right there on the spot, just to satisfy the itch. But, again, something inside him kept his finger from squeezing the trigger.