Monthly Archives: August 2018

Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

Betty’s Bridge

Betty first saw Hell through a car window as they sped down the Interstate. Outside, the trees turned to ashen husks as the cornfields became desolate dustbowls. The sky hollowed out to an empty darkness that swallowed all the twinkling stars whole. She began crying and her mother pushed her Mr. Teddy at her while her father turned up the music. The more she cried, the louder her father turned up the music.

In time, Betty learned not to cry, but it would only be much later.

After that first sighting, she started progressively seeing Hell everywhere. At first, it was hiding in dim corners, dancing in the shadows down the bottom of the garden and lurking in underground parking lots. At the beginning, it was only in those sorts of places but, eventually, it was everywhere. Eventually, Hell was on their farm and in their house. It was in their kitchen, climbing up the stairs to her bedroom and waiting for her in bed.

It was like Betty was seeing across two worlds, superimposed on each other. She explained this to Mr. Teddy. The one world was our world and the other one was the worst possible version of our world. Both worlds were there, both were real and both existed at the same time: our world and Hell.

Well, she called it Hell. Mr. Teddy said that it was a parallel dimension. He called it the Bad Place.

Mr. Teddy was a better listener than Mommy, who would smile at Betty, carry on sipping her drink and reading her magazines and tell Betty to go play in her room. Daddy was always at work or reading his newspaper with a whisky in hand.

At least Mr. Teddy listened. Mr. Teddy reassured her that the Bad Place could not get her. No matter how bad the Bad Place looked, no matter how hellish its nightmare, Mr. Teddy cuddled Betty back and told her everything was going to be fine. They would be safe together. Always, because Betty was special.

***

“Ma’am, could you please go over that again? Please. Just nice and slow, I just want to make sure that I understand you correctly.”

The speaker was a slightly overweight, balding small-town cop. He was narrowing his eyes and scrunching up his face. Perhaps he thought it would help him understand whatever was being explained to him by the sobbing, hysterical woman from the arms of her pale-faced, trembling husband.

“For years, B-betty always told us the stories, but–you know children?–we, you know, did not listen,” she sputtered amidst streams of tears, “We should’ve listened, honey, should’ve known, but how could we? For years now! Jus-just thought it was a game, or she was seeking attention, you know, each time she told us that she sa-saw–it. Them–there!”

And with that, Betty’s mother broken down into an incomprehensible heap of tears and regret. He husband coughed–pale as a ghost–and, his lips quivering, tried to finish his wife’s tale.

“And, uhm, officer,” he began lamely, looking away and trying to pick the words best suited to civilized conversation, “And she–uh, Betty, was right. They were there the whole time and, like she said, they crossed and took her. She walked across to them. Her and Mr. Teddy. Taken.”

The cop had not written a single word on his notepad. He sat frozen, staring at the hysterical mess that was the couple.

Eventually, he sighed, leaned back and scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“And,” he began slowly, “And who is Mr. Teddy?”

At these words, the wife buried deeper into her husband’s arms, manic sobbing wrecking her whole frame. Her husband barely held himself better. His colour moved from pale-white to near-translucent as his eyes opened and hands dug into the quaint, floral couch they were sitting on.

“H-he! That beast, in our house the whole time!” the cop nodded dutifully as this stream of terrified consciousness began to pour out the husband, “Mr. Teddy w-was one of them. Mr. Teddy was the one. You don’t want to know who he was. What he was, but I will tell you…”

The cop leaned closer as the husband motioned to him. The husband looked quickly around as if the walls in their lounge had ears and hoarsely whispered two short words to the cop.

“Liberal Democrat.”

***

“Hello, Betty,” Ted said, carefully, “I’m Teddy. Mr. Teddy. In fact, it has been my robot you have been playing with all this time. It is so good to finally meet you.”

Betty stood there blinking, clutching Mr. Teddy in her arms.

“She seems fine after crossing!” a stranger exclaimed, checking strange dials and screens surrounding them in some sort of laboratory, “Incredible! No human could withstand stepping between dimensions yet this little girl did it without a scratch and on her own!”

The man who had identified himself as Teddy stepped forward and crouched down to look at Betty in her eyes. He had a warm smile on his face and reached out and squeezed her arm.

“Thank you, Betty, for walking to our world. I always knew that you were the one that could do that, it just took a while for me–Mr. Teddy–to show you how to do it. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure how to do it. I’m not special like you, Betty. I am very glad that you are here and I will keep you safe.”

Still clutching Mr. Teddy, Betty blinked and asked in a small, frightened voice, “Where am I? Why did Mr. Teddy want me to come here?”

“Betty,” Teddy started, still smiling reassuringly, “You are in a parallel dimension. While your world is fine, our world is about to end and we need a way to escape. We have built Bridges into other worlds but organic matter cannot survive the energy transition. So, we began sending robots to explore these other worlds. In this process, we encountered more and more legends of Walkers, rare living beings that could Transition at will. You, Betty, are first and only Walker we have ever found. You are special. You are the only one in all the Multiverse that can save us.”

“And how can I do that, Mr. Teddy?” asked Betty, more curious than scared anymore as she adjusted to what seemed a friendly situation. Walkers were always easy with change. That was how they were built to transition between worlds across an infinite multiverse.

“You remember how I showed you how to walk across the bridge to get here?” Teddy asked Betty and she nodded, “Well, I need you to do that again and take us with you. Do you think you can do that?”

Betty smiled. She now knew how to do that. It was easy. She could save all these nice people. She was sure mommy wouldn’t mind if they stayed at their house. Before they had left, Mr. Teddy had spoken to her parents about where she was going and what they were doing.

She was sure they would understand.

Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

From Whence You Cannot Awake

He could not get comfortable. He wasn’t in pain, just slightly uncomfortable. The cushions were soft and the couch was spacious but he kept shifting his weight, unsuccessfully trying to find a spot where he could relax. His neck hurt and he felt fat. His shoes were too tight but the floor was cold and he didn’t want to take them off. The TV was blaring on about some horrific war and his moronic team losing again while the market kept falling and inflation kept rising.

Perhaps it was the stressful, unfulfilling day at work cramping his neck and back into painful spasms. Maybe he had drunk too much coffee trying to motivate himself to be productive during the day? Maybe he’d just snacked on too many nuts and chocolates just now trying to make himself feel good?

Maybe it was just a shit world and he hated being alive?

“Shall we get some takeout?” he asked his wife next to him on the couch, “Maybe a pizza?” As he said it, he regretted saying the words. They really should be trying to eat healthily. And they spent too much money on takeaways. They should really be trying to save money as the cost of everything just kept rising but his salary stayed flat.

His wife barely acknowledged him, she was staring transfixed at the TV. Why was she so interested in the rubbish on that box, he wondered?

“Sure, honey,” she mumbled, “Whatever you want.”

He nodded, wholly unsatisfied at the answer. The moment he started ordering, she would change her mind. He knew this as it always happened.

“OK, Dominos’ has a special on–” he started before she interrupted him.

“Why don’t we pop to the shop and get some healthy stuff? Maybe we cook tonight?”

He nodded, knowing that this was the right thing to do. He too tired to argue. God, he really did not feel like cooking. Or leaving this couch, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

“I’ll drive,” he said, standing up and moving to get his car keys, “Let’s be quick. I have an early day tomorrow. Breakfast meeting across town. God, why do people organize such things? Fucking hate breakfast meetings.”

All he wanted to do was relax. Or get comfortable. He was so tired he could sleep right then and there, but he knew the moment bedtime came he would lie awake, tossing and turning, as he worried about work and bills and this nightmare that he was trapped in…

***

“And that’s how it works, really,” said the shimmering being of light, “Good ones transcend and bad descend, locked in The Physical.”

There was an audience of light around the shimmering being that was speaking. The light rippled in celestial colors so beautiful the angels themselves would weep if they saw them.

“Yes,” the Shimmering Being said, its voice pure heavenly music that blessed the very air it traveled through, “I’ll take one more question and then we really need to be getting on to the next cosmic lesson.”

“What exactly is The Physical?” asked a swirling essence of pure light, glimmering dreams whirling in its infinite depths, “You keep saying that the bad ones get sent down to The Physical, but what exactly is it and why is it so bad?”

The Shimmering Being glowed. Perhaps it was smiling or laughing but the process was so breathtakingly beautiful that civilizations would have gladly died for the mere privilege to glimpse such a thing.

“Good question,” it began, picking it words carefully, “The Physical is a lower Plane than ours. It is most horrific in torturing those stuck in it. Not only does it fix their forms into heavy, slow, painful dark-material, but it also offers just enough good to make the bad that much worse. There is only one escape from The Physical, but its trap is so complete that its victims almost never escape. They keep clinging to the good while the bad keeps torturing them.”

***

His phone’s alarm cut through his dreams and, groggily, he flicked the snooze and rolled over. Then he remembered his breakfast meeting.

Fuck, he thought, I really do have to get up. Traffic was going to be horrendous. His wife was asleep next to him and he leaned over the kissed her, mildly jealous that she got to sleep in and slightly horny because they had not had sex in weeks.

Sighing, he rolled out of bed and moved to the bathroom. He had a headache and his neck and back ached. Actually, he felt worse than when he had gone to bed last night. How was that possible? Wasn’t he suppose to feel better after a good night’s sleep?

Fucking bullshit, he thought to himself.

At that point, a strange, fuzzy memory popped into his mind. Had he dreamt about shimmering beings and clouds of infinitely beautiful light? Some cosmic eternity? He could not remember what they had told him? Or had he actually been one of them? It is was agonizingly beautiful and, strangely, his soul ached and longed for whatever it was that he had glimpsed in his dreams…

What the fuck, he thought, as he flushed the toilet and wandered downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. He felt terrible. He wished he was dead, or, at least, still asleep.

Fucking bullshit, he thought to himself again.

Sighing, he put the kettle on. His dog trotted up, muzzling him gently with her snout. He leaned down and patted her. She gazed up at him, pure love in her eyes, and he smiled.

Life wasn’t that bad. Surely, work would get better and his wife did love him, he was sure. Maybe tonight they would make love? Life wasn’t that bad, he just had to get through this rough patch and things would get better. He was sure of it.

Fantasy, Romance

Assassins in the Night

She first saw him as a fleeting shadow across the rooftops of her City. Her mark’s body crumpled quietly to the floor beside her. She hesitated ever so slightly and then she leaped lightly up the wall to chase after him, blades disappearing as quickly as they had appeared.

Their chase darted across the rooftops under the Dark Moon and its musing Stars. They whirling over the City like its rooftops were their private dance-floor. Even the cool night air seemed to play a secret music as their shadows flittered from roof to roof…

Then he stopped dead still. The music paused. The Dark Moon and the City waited as the Stars leaned ever-so-slightly forward in anticipation.

She too stopped, frozen on the edge of the roof while he turned and looked straight back at her from the other side of the roof.

Silence.

Time held its breath and, despite all the hearts she had stopped, it was her’s that skipped this beat. His dark green eyes as unreadable as his black mask, she weighed the multiple blades hidden over her lithe body.

Then he was gone. Little more than a fleeting shadow wrapped in midnight and ghosted off by a mystery.

She smiled ever-so-slightly and then the next moment the rooftop was empty. The assassins were gone and only the Dark Moon, its Stars and the City knew what had transpired that night.

***

In another life, she next saw him under the midday sun. He lithely stalked across her street, black hair blowing in the wind as his dark green eyes flashed around him.

He flicked up his hand and caught her blade as it flew straight towards his beating heart.

She was long gone as he looked around the street but only the cold blade was still there with a small message wrapped around. All that was written in the message was an address. The address where he had stopped and turned around.

He hesitated for just a moment–a smile dancing across his face–before slipping from sight into the shadows. It was not the blade but the message that found its mark beating in his breast.

The sunlight and all its creatures were oblivious to what had just  happened, but the City smiled and waited for the harsh sun to tire. It always did.

Eventually, the Dark Moon joined the City overhead with its chorus of Stars. Then the assassins’ secret music started to play on the cool night air. And, for the briefest moment, two fleeting shadows met on a lonely rooftop against the night sky.

The City smiled as the Dark Moon looked down amused. All the Stars twinkled and they hummed the lover’s music.

And then they were gone, two fleeting shadows wrapped in midnight and ghosted off by a mystery.

***

Many years later, after a great storm had torn through the City and terrible clouds had smothered the Dark Moon and its Stars for weeks, an ordinary man climbed up to his house’s roof.

Under the harsh sunlight, he had clambered up his rickety ladder carrying rusty tools to fix a leak. It was honest work and he was an honest man and, thus, he had honest expectations.

He expected a hard days work under the harsh sun. He expected muck and dirt while he fixed where the storm and beating rain had torn a gash into his dwelling. He expected a lot of ordinary things as most ordinary people do.

What he found instead were two blades, still as sharp as the day the lovers had left them. Hilts crossing, they were buried deep into what he had always thought was his own roof in what he had always thought was his own city.

Stand there staring at them, he briefly glimpsed a world far from his sunlight which danced to a secret music that he would never hear. The rest of this world, though, would forever remain a fleeting shadow wrapped in midnight and ghosted off by a mystery that only the City, the Dark Moon and its Stars truly knew.