After the Revolution - Now Available at Amazon!

After The Revolution at Amazon.co.uk

After The Revolution is now available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com for the very reasonable prices of £4.49 and $7.20 respectively. Please stop by and check it out. My novella is also available from lulu.com at a discounted price (20% off!).

Thanks for all your support!

-Kit

When Alex gets a terrifying glimpse of the future, he sees what will become of his country. After the Revolution, Britain is a dictatorship at war. It is the year 2060 - London has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution in the 2030's. As Alex, (a present day tourist to this time) investigates this strange landscape he is picked up by Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. How will He cope when he returns? Can he cange the future? Will he?

Our Father - Part II

Good evening all,

Thanks for stopping by to visit my humble blog! The time has come for part II of my novella 'Our Father.' In case you missed it, part I can be found here. 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, are there a lot of them...

As ever, thanks for reading!

Eden

For the fist time in his existence, Yahweh felt worthy of his title, and his place amongst the Gods in the Kingdom. He looked down upon Eden, and all the creatures he had created with beaming pride and warmth in his heart.

The first man, whom Yahweh had crated from clay and named Adam, toiled away, tending to the garden, but Yahweh could see great loneliness in his eyes. So he commanded: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a companion fit for him.’

So once more, Yahweh descended into Eden, and upon his arrival caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He leaned over the sleeping man, and from his chest he pulled a rib, out of which he created a mate for Adam. When Adam awoke he looked upon his new mate with joy, exclaiming: ‘This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! She will be called woman, because she was taken out of man.'

The man and his new mate, who was named Eve, were happy in this paradise and Yahweh said unto them: ‘This is your home. Love it, tend to it – care for all the plants animals in it, for they are my gift to you. Be fruitful, go forth and multiply! Fill this land with your children! Work the land and nourish yourself with the fruits of your labour. From every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you may not eat. For the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’

So happy were the new pair, they agreed to their Lord’s commands and went of to enjoy the spoils of the Garden of Eden.

On the other side of the garden, from within the branches of a fig tree, the yellow eyes of a serpent watched as Adam and Eve toiled. But this was not one of God’s creations – this was an imitator. Venus had done as Jupiter had asked him and infiltrated Eden, hiding in the trees under the guise of a snake. He was ready to perform his test on Yahweh’s new creation.

In a shady corner of the garden, Eve, naked, though not ashamed of it, picked fruit from the fig trees when she heard a voice from between the leaves.

‘Eve,’ hissed the voice.

She turned and saw the serpent looking down at her from the branches. She wasn’t afraid. She knew no fear for she had no knowledge of good and evil.

‘Eve,’ the wheezing voice repeated. ‘Has God really said, "You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’

Eve replied: ‘We may eat from the trees of the garden, but of the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, "Do not eat from it, and do not even touch it, or that day you will surely die."'

The snake smiled. Venus was getting into character. ‘Surely you will not die! For your God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.'

Eve looked at the tree and trusted the snake. She pulled from its branches the most perfect apple ever to have existed and held it in front of her mouth.

‘Go on,’ hissed Venus. Though his words begged her to go on, Venus’s mind secretly hoped beyond hope that Eve would drop the apple and not give in to temptation. He hoped that his master’s creation was sound. He hoped Jupiter was wrong.

Alas, Eve bit into the apple and offered some to Adam. He too ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Venus shed a tear and slithered off into the branches. His work was done.

Suddenly both Adam and Eve became aware aware that they were naked and they felt shame. Their eyes had been opened. They hurried to find fig leaves which they sewed together to cover themselves.

High above Eden, in the kingdom of heaven, Yahweh looked down with burning fury at his new creations covering themselves with fig leaves. In a crash of lightning and a blaze of fire, he cast himself back towards Eden, roaring: ‘They are my creation! They may not disobey me! I am their Lord! I am their Lord!’

When he came to Eden, the voice of God rang around the garden. ‘Where are you?’ he called out to the man and his mate. Yahweh was furious.

When they heard the angry voice of their God appearing from on high, Adam and Eve hid themselves in the bushes, but Yahweh soon found them and saw the fig leaves about their bodies. ‘What are these, about your person?’ he asked, seething.

Eve replied: ‘We are naked – we have sown together fig leaves to hide our shame.’

‘Who told you that you were naked?’ commanded Yahweh.

Neither Adam nor Eve replied.

‘Have you eaten from the tree of knowledge? The tree from which I told you not to eat?’

Eve told Yahweh all about the serpent, and how it had tricked them into eating the fruit.

Yahweh could not contain his fury. ‘What have you done?’ he bellowed. ‘As punishment for your actions – for your disobedience – I will cause you great trouble during pregnancy, and when you bear children, you will have great pain. You will desire your husband, and he will rule over you.!’

Around them the sky over Eden turned blood red with Yahweh’s anger.

‘And you,’ he said to Adam, ‘You listened to your wife, and ate the fruit which I commanded you not to eat. I hence forth put a curse on the ground! You will have to work very hard for food. The ground will produce weeds and thorns to stand in your way. You will toil, sweat and work hard for food, and eventually you will return to the ground. You once were dust, and so shall ye be again!’

And so Yahweh made Adam and Eve clothes from animal skins and cast them out of the paradise he had created for them and sent them out into the wilderness east of Eden.

The Fallen Angel

Yahweh came thundering back to Heaven in a blaze of fire and lightning and burst into the Great Hall where his mother and father and the rest of the heavenly committee sat, paying no attention to the angelic guards posted outside.

‘Yahweh,’ said his mother, barely startled by her son’s sudden appearance, ‘what brings you to the Great Hall? Should you not be tending to your new flock?’

‘I am betrayed!’ thundered Yahweh in response. ‘I have been tricked and used! Somebody wants my creation to fail, and they have planted the seeds of destruction in my work!’

Jupiter rose to his feet, towering above his son and turned the flames that were coming from Yahweh into wisping, lifeless smoke. ‘If your creation is bound for destruction, then it is the fruit of seeds you yourself have sown – nobody else. The creation is only as strong the creator.’

‘But,’ said Yahweh, ‘an impostor has snuck himself into my Garden of Eden and tricked mankind into disobeying me!’

‘Your creation has been tested. Your people are not as controlled as you had hoped.’

‘What can be expected for a creation that only took seven days?’ The mocking voice of one of the elders echoed from the other side of the hall. ‘Some things cannot be rushed.’

The fury within Yahweh was visibly rising again, and he turned with his mouth open towards the elder preparing to respond, when a nod from his father told him to tread carefully. He turned again towards his father. ‘But who has tested my world? Who has dared to test the almighty Yahweh?’

‘I did, Yahweh.’

Yahweh took a step back. ‘You, Father? But why? Have you no faith in me?’

Jupiter sat back down next to his wife and turned to his son. ‘You have not yet proven yourself worthy of the power of creation, and it was certainly not my idea to allow you it. You have shown yourself to be short sighted, cruel, jealous and work-shy in the past - far too immature in many of our eyes. When you created this world in seven days – a short stretch by anyone’s standards, we wanted to be sure it was worthy.’

‘And you, father,’ replied Yahweh, ‘you snuck into Eden and tricked my Adam and my Eve?’

‘I did not.’

The rage began to boil as Yahweh hissed his words through curled lips. ‘Then who? Who has dared to test me? Let them feel my wrath!’

Thoah entered the Great Hall and bowed before Jupiter. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘the Angel Venus is here at your request.’

Yahweh looked into his father’s eyes and knew the truth.

‘Send him in,’ said Jupiter.

‘Venus? My own angel? My own servant?’ He heard Venus’s footsteps behind him. ‘He will pay dearly for this.’

Yahweh turned around and lit up in a blaze of fire and lightning. ‘Venus! How dare you test your master? What have you done? You have destroyed my creation! And you will pay! You will be sent to a lake of fire for eternity! There you will suffer in the darkness and brimstone with all your Angels for your disobedience!’

‘My Lord…’ stuttered Venus, ‘…this is hardly fair-’

‘Fair is not a factor in this, Venus, you have betrayed me! It is MY world! MY creation! I am your master and you will do as I command of you! Now be gone!’

And a pit as black as night opened underneath Venus and his angels, and they were swallowed into the hellfire.

Our Father - The story of a God who didn't believe in himself.

Hello all,

I realise it's been a while since I posted some fiction on kitfosterfiction, so I've decided to post an excerpt from the new novella I'm writing, which will be part of a larger work, entitled 'The Children of Disobedience' which should hopefully be complete by the end of this summer. This extract, which is from a story called 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, is there a lot of them - as anyone who has even glanced at a bible will know! The story will pretty much comprise of the tale of the bible, only told from a very different perspective.

Hope you enjoy - please comment and let me know what you think!

‘God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we — we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.’

- Friedrich Nietzsche


Yahweh

In the time before time, before the seas were filled and the mountains rose to touch the sky; before the sky even, there was born unto the heavens a race of Gods. Few among them knew where they themselves came from, but they had been around for a long time; perhaps forever – not even they knew. Such a trivial human concept as time did not concern them, anyhow; they were content just to be. As gods do, they had, by human standards, infinite powers and were capable of the power of creation. That was their crowning achievement, their greatest skill – the power to breathe life where is none. Each God carefully crafted the world of his own creation and watched as it bloomed millennium after millennium. Like gardeners tending to their allotments they watched and coaxed life into action.

Yahweh wasn’t like the other gods. It was clear to his mother and father and all of his older siblings that he wasn’t the same as them. He lacked the foresight that his elders had, and of all the Gods in the kingdom of heaven (his own father included) considered him to be an upstart. He was quick to temper and was rarely given any responsibility because of his recklessness. His older brother, who had, like his father and his father before him, been entrusted with the power of creation used to tease him about his shortcomings, telling him that he could never amount to anything. The power of creation was a right reserved only for those who had shown their maturity, and Yahweh was still not deemed worthy.

But rather than contain his temper and recklessness and further his maturity, deprivation of the power of creation only frustrated Yahweh further. He would watch as the elders boasted their fine creations – beautiful, thriving, harmonious worlds which they tended to with great care and attention. How he longed to care for a world of his own, how he longed to do what he was intended to do.

His mother saw the sadness in her son’s eyes and decided to take pity on him, so she called him to her side and said: ‘My son, you are young and you still have much to learn, however it is your right as one of us, that you should be trusted with the power of creation as was your father and his father before. May you use your gift wisely an may it bring you happiness and maturity.’

And so it was that Yahweh, much to the disapproving disgruntlement of his father and others amongst the elders of the Gods, was given the gift of creation.



Creation

And so Yahweh thanked his mother for the pity she had shown him, and went to create his new world.

First he created the earth. It was a dark, vast pool without form. Then he commanded through the darkness: ‘Let there be light!’
And there was light. Yahweh saw the light and he separated it from the darkness. He called the light day and the dark night. And so the darkness came – and so too came the light. This was the first day - and it was good.

On the second day, he commanded that there should be something to divide the water, and so the water split in two, with a body of air in the middle. He called this the sky.

Then he commanded: ‘Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear!’
And it was so. Yahweh called the land earth and the water seas. And it was good.
And Yahweh looked down upon his newly created earth and said, 'Let the land produce seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees of every kind.’ And it was so. From the barren earth shot up thousands of plants and trees all over the planet. Yahweh saw the fruits of his work – and it was good. This was the third day.

On the fourth day, he created lights in the sky to separate night from day. These would be the markers of the seasons, years and days. He created the sun to warm the days and the moon and stars to mark the coming of night.

Yahweh observed his new world with pride: the flowing oceans, the sky full of burning trophies of his work, and the land, rich with fruit and seed bearing plants. It was good, but still incomplete.

On the fifth day, Yahweh called out across the land: 'Let the waters swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the sky.' And it was so. All over this new land, animals of all kinds sprung up and took their lives. The seas filled with fish and other sea creatures, the sky filled with birds and other winged beasts taking flight for the very first time, and the land bore cattle and insects and all the other wild creatures of the land.

He looked down upon the new beasts of the world and saw that it was good, before calling out to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the seas, land and sky alike!’

On the sixth day, Yahweh crated someone to watch over these beasts. From the clay in the ground, he moulded a creation in his own image – Man, into which he breathed the gift of life through his nostrils. The man took his first breath and sprang to life before Yahweh’s eyes. He saw the man – and it was good. Then he said unto him: ‘Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every creature that moves on the ground. I give you every seed-bearing plant and every fruit-bearing tree on the face of the earth to be yours for food. And to all the animals of the earth, all the birds of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground, I give every green plant for food.’

Yahweh looked down upon his completed work. It was good. He was so proud; he could not wait to show his mother and father.

He was pleased with his works, and on the seventh day he rested.

Venus

Jupiter, Yahweh’s father looked down upon his son’s creation with great interest and sighed as he turned to his wife. ‘Never before has any God completed creation in seven days… he can’t have done a thorough job.’

His wife replied that it was essential that they trust him, and that ‘He can only begin to grow if we allow him to spread his wings – he has to be given responsibilities. He is still young-’

‘He’s irresponsible,’ he snapped back. ‘He’s irresponsible, quick to temper, and he has no foresight. You should never have trusted him with creation. Not yet at least.’

‘He has to learn-’
‘Never before in the whole kingdom has there been a child like him.’

Suddenly, Thoah - one of Jupiter’s archangels, came striding in and bowed before his superiors. ‘My Lord,’ he said, addressing Jupiter. ‘Venus seeks an audience with you. He is waiting outside.’

‘Send him in,’ replied Jupiter, nodding towards the angel.
‘Venus?’ said Hera, Yahweh’s mother. ‘He’s one of Yahweh’s angels… what news has he?’
‘I called for him.’
‘You called for him…? What have you planned…?’

Moments later, a beautiful angel with flowing blond hair and a face like lightning came striding in towards Jupiter.

‘Venus!’ said Jupiter to the angel.
‘My Lord,’ said Venus bowing at the feet of his superior. ‘You sent for me?’
‘I did. You are assigned to my son, Yahweh, are you not?’
‘I am indeed,’ replied Venus.
‘How do you find him?’ asked Jupiter, ‘as a master?’
Venus rose to his feet and stood two steps back, his head still bowed in reverence to this elder of the Gods who had invited him to his audience. ‘He has always been good to me and my angels. He was very glad to be granted the power of creation.’
‘This lack of power,’ interrupted Yahweh’s mother, ‘it frustrated him in the past?’
Venus hesitated before replying. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.
‘Did he speak to you about it?’ asked Jupiter.
‘On occasion. I believe he felt somehow inadequate before he was granted this power. He felt as though his peers had little faith in him. After a while he began to lose faith in himself.’
‘And you,’ said Jupiter, ‘do you have faith in him?’
Venus hesitated. ‘He is my master,’ he eventually replied. ‘I have faith in any God – and when all is said and done he is no different. It is not my place to judge any God, my lord; I am but an angel – a slave to your grace – Yahweh’s worth will be proved by his works, and not by words of mine.’
‘You are a loyal servant,’ said Yahweh’s mother.
Venus bowed in appreciation.

‘I have a job for you, Venus,’ said Jupiter. ‘I wish to test the strength of my son’s creation, to see if he has created a world fit to be inhabited.’
‘And what is my task?’
‘You will go down to this place Yahweh has created – you will find the Garden of Eden - that is the paradise that Yahweh has given to this 'Man' of his, and you will give his 'Man' a choice.’

After the Revolution - Paperback and eBook now available!

Hi all!

As you can probably tell from the sexy link to the right of this text, my novella 'After the Revolution' is now available to buy on Lulu.com for the low low price of £3:59 for the paperback and £2:39 for the ebook. That's only the price of a cup of coffee, so you can't lose! Buy your copy today and follow Alex on his journey through London in the year 2060, as Britain is a country at war in the grip of Wilson, the ruthless dictator who bullied himself in to power during the British revolution in the 2030's.

'After the Revolution' will also be available from Amazon.com and other online retailers in the beginning of August, but you can get a sneak advance preview at a discounted price from Lulu.com!

So please come across to Lulu using the link below and check it out!

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/after-the-revolution/15592064

After the Revolution - Part 9

Good morning, all! This is the final part of 'After the Revolution' - the (hopefully) thrilling conclusion. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to look at it. If anyone would like a hard copy of the book then please contact me through the comments section. Thank you again.

After the Revolution - Part Nine

Nineteen

(After the Revolution)

Alex’s heart raced as he darted through the war torn streets of the city that had once been his home. Desperately running, trying not to think about the agonising pain in his back, his mind set on one thing. Home. He needed to wake up from this nightmare, and he needed to wake up soon. He kept to the darkness, hiding in the shadows of the twisted remains of buildings for fear of being picked up by Wilson’s POLA again. Ralph was gone. He thought about the child’s body, lying so still on the cellar steps. He was an innocent. What had he done to deserve that fate? He was just a child; another innocent casualty of Wilson’s regime.

As Alex approached the abandoned school where he had left his machine, the fist few flakes of a snowfall began to drift silently through the dark air. Even the snow here looked grey and bleak. It looked polluted… had Wilson taken that to? As the snowflakes drifted towards the ground, they landed in thick piles of ash from the air raid and rested in puddles of grey slush.

Alex looked left and right. They’re watching me… They’re waiting for me… Stoltz was right… they’re always watching. When he was sure that all was clear, he began to climb across the rubble towards the school.

Bernard flipped the switch on the television, stunned that the power was still running, and watched the screen come to life. He had been hiding out in this classroom, next to some huge metal machine for two nights now and this was the first time it had occurred to him to try the television.

No signal, of course. Just static.

He picked up a DVD from the teacher’s desk and looked at the cover. It read ‘Britain after the Revolution: How Wilson reclaimed Great Britain for the people.’ Bernard actually laughed out loud as he read the title to himself and looked at the artist’s impression of a gleaming and prospering London on the front cover. He’d watched these kind of videos at school as a child; Wilson’s standard classroom propaganda.

It’s not exactly primetime entertainment, he thought as he slipped it into the player, but it’ll do under the circumstances.

As Alex approached the door to the classroom, he began to hear something coming from inside. Talking. He stood for a minute, listening to the sound through the wall. He couldn’t pick out any individual words, just a mumble of sounds. He knew he had to go in there, people or not. His only chance of escaping this world lay on the other side of that wall; and he had to escape. Slowly he pulled the gun that he had seized from the POLA guard up to his face and turned the corner and into the classroom through the hole in the wall. As he stood on the threshold, pointing his weapon into the dark disused classroom, he saw his machine, illuminated only by the glow of the blaring television that stood next to it. In front of the television, he saw a man sitting with his back to Alex in the teacher’s chair watching the screen. Before he even had time to think about what he was doing, the words bellowed out of his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’

The man jumped up and turned around to face Alex, eyeing the gun in his hand. ‘Whoa, mate… take it easy. I found this place… I found it fair and square. Let’s not do anything rash.’

Alex coughed, and snapped through pained breaths. ‘Get out of here. Now.’

‘Come on mate,’ replied the man. ‘We all need a place to hide these days… I found this place… Just let me be.’

‘You found this place… but I’ve got the gun. Now move.’ Alex began to walk towards the man, any fear he would have once felt now soaked in adrenaline. ‘Move!’

The man began to walk towards Alex, shuffling towards the other end of the room with his hands raised. ‘Okay, mate,’ he said, ‘you’ve got the gun.’ When he had passed Alex, he began to run and darted out through the hole in the wall.

As Bernard stood on the mound of rubble and looked out towards the decaying city, he shivered and pulled his collar around his neck, anticipating another night of the bitter cold. He turned back and looked only once towards the school.

Idiot.

Alex felt comforted to see his machine. It was something comforting… something he knew; something from his world. He glanced briefly at the television screen as he leapt into his machine, ready to return home. He pulled the door closed and prepared to leave, but as he tried to power up, something was wrong. Shit. It wouldn’t go. It couldn’t get enough power up. He leapt out of the machine, barely even noticing the searing pain in his back anymore to assess what the damage was. As he circled the machine, he suddenly felt a terrible feeling of claustrophobia. He felt trapped. Would he ever return home?

Then he saw it. One of the side panels had come loose and it looked like something had been chewing the wires. Stupid bloody rats.

He immediately dropped to his knees and began to repair the damage as best he could with no tools. His heart began to pound in his chest as he anticipated being stuck in this world forever. As he worked, he listened to the television that was still blaring in the corner of the room.

‘… and then thirty years ago, the world changed forever, when Wilson led the Great Britain to victory, defeating the Conservative government who were crippling the country, and restoring power to the people in the British Revolution. But our great leader came from humble beginnings. He was born in London where he was raised by his mother…’

As Alex worked, he glanced up at the screen. As he did, his blood turned to ice and his stomach turned to lead. There, on the screen, looking out through her big dark eyes, was the face he had seen all week, every time he closed his eyes. Looking down at him from the television screen was his wife. He froze and stared intently at the screen.

‘…Wilson adopted his mother’s maiden name from birth, after his father…’ Alex felt physically sick as he saw a photograph of himself flash on the screen. ‘…was locked up in the Stewart Mental Institution for attempting to kill his wife when she was pregnant with Wilson. Many speculate that it was because of this trauma to his life and his mother’s life that led Wilson to have such strong morals regarding leadership and guidance…’

Alex was numb as he replayed what he had just heard again and again in his head. Tears began to stream down his face. All of this… It’s my fault… It’s all because of me.

Still he kept tweaking at wires, trying to repair the loose connections as his world crumbled around him.

At last he finished, and unsure if the thing would even work, he replaced the panel and began to climb back in. He clutched Ralph’s scarf tightly as he pulled the door closed, taking one last look at the terrifying nightmare that he had travelled to, and began to power up the machine. This time it felt different, he could feel that it was working better. He set the coordinates for the exact point in time that he had left from and took a deep breath as he prepared to engage. Suddenly there was a flash of blinding light, and a deafening roar. Alex snapped his eyes tightly shut and tensed every muscle in his body as the machine began to shake underneath him.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, the light disappeared and Alex tentatively opened his eyes. All he could see was smoke; thick smoke. Did it work?

With the little strength Alex had left, he pushed the hatch door open and fell on to the ground. He lay on the floor, shaking and taking deep, exhausted breaths, trying his best to see anything through the smoke. Then he heard a voice, slipping through the grey fog.

‘A… Alex?’

As Alex turned, he looked up and saw her, and just before he lost consciousness, he managed to speak.

‘Annie? Is that you, Annie? I… I’m back…’

‘…I’m back.’

Twenty

(Present Day)

The trial didn’t last long. It was pretty much unanimously agreed that he was guilty. Even Alex knew that. And then there he was, back in a cell again. Back in the darkness, only this time he didn’t have Ralph by his side to comfort him. Ralph wouldn’t even exist for another forty years. Forty years… and it seems like just yesterday.

He looked up at the grey walls that towered around him; it could be fifty or a hundred years from his own time. How would he know? There is no way to keep time in this cell. They thought that he was a madman… they thought he was dangerous… so they threw him in here for the rest of his time on this earth. What did time really mean, anyway? It could be the very dawn of time or the end of the world and it would be all the same to Alex. No windows… no contact. They’ll turn me into a madman…

But he had done what was right. He had done what needed to be done. They didn’t know it… they would never know it… be he saved them all. Now there will be no revolution. He thought about that seed; that seed of evil that was growing inside his wife. He had stopped it – for the greater good.

He laughed as he found himself muttering the same three words over and over to himself.

Power… Strength… Freedom.

Power… Strength… Freedom, Power… Strength… Freedom.

Not anymore. He had saved them all… and all it had cost was his life and freedom.

How had this all begun? Alex though back to his messy workshop and the device. Only a matter of weeks ago it had meant everything to him… But now it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Alive or dead… free or incarcerated… none of it mattered anymore.

How could a heap of metal cause so much trouble?

Some things are too great for man to cope with. No man should know what lies ahead. It’s enough to send him mad.

Alex jumped as the metal shutter on his cell door screeched open and a long shaft of light poured into the black room. A steel food tray was pushed through the opening, and the guard on the other side hissed through.

‘Hey,’ he said, sneering, ‘I just thought you’d like to know… she’s gonna be fine. Your girl? The one you beat up? She’s gonna be fine… you failed, you piece of shit.’ The guard slammed the shutter closed and cell was once again in darkness.

No… It can’t be true. He had left her for dead. He thought she was dead. All my work could be in vain! The baby couldn’t survive… It can’t have.

Alex stood up and began to pace the tiny cell, hoping and praying that all he had done had not been in vain; that he had stopped the revolution.

He began to get frustrated and started banging on the wall, shouting at the top of his lungs to anyone who could hear him.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing! He’ll kill us all!’ he banged louder on the steel door. ‘Everything will change after the revolution! Can you hear me? Can you hear me you vile pigs? Power! Strength! Freedom!’

* * * * * *

‘It’s a miracle!’ said the nurse, turning to her colleague, who was washing her hands. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it in all your days?’ She looked down as she placed the newly delivered baby into the incubator. ‘He’s a little fighter.’ As she turned around to take a wristband from the highest shelf, she caught a glimpse of the mother, lying on the bed with a sheet over her head. ‘What a shame the poor soul lost his mother, though… what did she say her name was?

The other nurse wiped a tear from her eye as she dried her hands. ‘Annie. Her husband beat her up - nearly killed her. They locked him away for a very long time. It’s a miracle she survived long enough to deliver this little fella.’

‘…what a shame.’ The nurse pulled a tiny wristband from a box on the highest shelf and flipped the lid from her pen and sat poised. ‘What’s the mother’s maiden name?’

The other nurse checked her notes and looked up.

‘Wilson…’

The End

After the Revolution - Part 8

Good Morning all, time for part eight of 'After the Revolution.' Recap below - Enjoy!

Whilst testing his newly developed time machine, Alex finds himself in the year 2060. London, his home, has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a ruthless dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution that happened in the late 2030's. As he investigates this strange, yet familiar landscape, he is picked up by the POLA, Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. He is held in a dark cell with Ralph, a young orphan who is trying to survive in war torn streets London. The officers discover that Alex has no identity chip (a necessity for all citizens in 2060) and take him to see Wilson in person, suspecting that he may part of the counter revolution that is planning to end Wilson's rule. Wilson orders that Alex is made an example off, and sends him to the infamous Room Ten, where a man called McCarthy, a man who gets answers, waits for him. After suffering torture at the hands of his oppressors, Alex and Ralph escape the prison during an air raid. Now they are free on the streets of London - but they are hunted...

Back in 2010, Alex has returned from his trip to the future, and his wife is left to deal with the silent terrified shell of a man that he has become. Gradually he becomes more edgy as he tries to come to terms with his experience. Slowly his silence and fear turn to anger and resentment as the marriage begins to fall apart. When Annie tells Alex that she is pregnant, everything changes. Alex becomes violent and in the middle of the night creeps into Annie's room to attack her and the baby growing inside of her...

Seventeen

After the Revolution

‘How’d you get out?’ Stoltz peered up though a tiny window that looked out on to the main street, the amber glow of flames reflecting on his face.

‘The prison was hit,’ mumbled Alex, still in too much pain to function correctly. ‘They blew a big hole right in the wall of our cell.’

‘From the looks of things,’ Stoltz said, pointing to the long scars at the top of Alex’s neck, ‘they took you to see McCarthy.’

Alex looked at the ground and nodded.

Suddenly, Stoltz lurched forwards towards Alex and snapped accusingly. ‘Did they get to you? What did you tell them?’

Alex didn’t reply.

‘They got to you… didn’t they? And you blabbed… you told them everything… you coward.’

Ralph stepped out of the darkness and snapped at Stoltz, protecting his friend. ‘He didn’t tell them anything! For seven days straight they took him to Room Ten, they brought him back battered and bleeding… but he didn’t say a thing… not a thing! He’s no coward!’

Stoltz stepped away from Alex.

‘Who’s the kid?’ he sneered. ‘He your boy?’

Alex looked round at Ralph and smiled appreciatively. ‘He’s my friend.’

‘Well,’ replied Stoltz, turning back towards the window, ‘I guess a man can use all the friends he can get these days.’

‘How did you escape?’ said Alex between pained breaths.

Stoltz grinned, turning back to Alex and squinting across the dark cellar. ‘They can’t keep me for long… no, I’m too good for them.’

‘Were you in the prison when the bomb hit too?’ asked Ralph.

‘Don’t be silly… They never even got me to that place. I’ve been out for days now. When the guards were taking me back to the transport, I beat them both… both at once… and then I was free.’ Stoltz smiled demonically. ‘So I guess it’s true, mate. It’s true what they say. Power… strength…’ He waved his arms in front of his face a conjurer would at the climax of his trick ‘…Freedom.’

‘Thanks for helping us back there…’ Alex paused as he tried to remember the man’s name.

‘Stoltz.’

‘Stoltz… yeah. Thanks.’ Alex took a good look around the dark room. ‘What is this place?’

‘This place is safety. For you at least. If you want to survive in London these days, you only have to know one thing. Where to hide.’ He walked back over to the window and surveyed the street above them once again. ‘They’re watching us. They’re always watching us. You have to know where to hide… where to hide, if you want to stay free. They can sniff out a defector… that’s what they do. That’s all they do. That’s all the POLA have ever done.’ He scratched his chin as he looked wistfully out at the collapsing city above him. ‘I remember this place. This street. There used to be a church over there, on the other side of the road… and big oak trees used to swing in front of it. I was only a child then of course…’

Stoltz turned around suddenly, looking up at Alex with his head bowed. ‘After the revolution, everything changed. Wilson took charge, and bit by bit our country began to decay. Do you remember what it used to be like, mate?’

Alex stared vacantly into space, thinking about what it used to be like, as Ralph crept out of the darkness and sought comfort by Alex’s side.

‘Of course not… you can’t be older than forty… you probably weren’t even born until just before the revolution.’ Stoltz took a seat on an oak barrel and stared at the dusty concrete floor. ‘Life was a different kettle of fish before Wilson seized power. I remember Lying on beaches…’ He half laughed to himself. ‘Sunday dinner… my old mum made a blinding roast.’ He looked up at Alex and Ralph. ‘And what do we have now? This…’ he gestured up towards the window, ‘…this burnt out shell of a home? This twisted graveyard of a city? We’re always on the run. We always will be on the run. For ever… for the rest of our life. What the hell is life anyway?’ He lurched forward towards the pair, gesturing wildly. ‘What is death? Does it even make a difference now?’ He looked around the room. ‘We’re out. But we’re only out for now. They will find us. They will find us! All of this… all of this… shit… and for what? For Wilson’s glorious dream of rebuilding the empire!’ He raised his voice to the point of nearly shouting. ‘For power…’ Stoltz saluted, ‘Strength… and Freedom!’ He began shouting at the top of his lungs. ‘Power, Strength, Freedom! Power, Strength, Freedom!’

Alex looked up at the window and heard voices outside as he began to try and calm Stoltz. They’ll find us for sure.

Still Stoltz kept shouting at the top of his lungs, repeating Wilson’s mantra again and again. He began to laugh hysterically as he shouted.

‘Power, Strength, Freedom! Power, Strength, Freedom!’

‘Be quiet!’ snapped Alex in a loud whisper. ‘They’ll hear you! They’ll find us!’

‘Let them come!’ Shouted Stoltz. ‘Let them capture us! Let the game continue! What else is there to do?’

Alex jumped as he began to hear footsteps at the top of the cellar stairs, and immediately fell back into the darkness, pulling Ralph with him. They crept into an alcove buried deep in the darkness at the back of the cellar and watched as two armed POLA officers marched down the stairs and held their guns up at the screaming Stoltz.

‘Put your hands up!’ Shouted the officer in front, as Stoltz jumped forward, and with one lightning fast swing of his fist, knocked the officer to the ground. The second guard lurched instinctively forward towards Stoltz, and as he tried his best to restrain him, Ralph turned to Alex and whispered through the darkness.

‘Now, Alex… now’s our chance… let’s make a run for it whilst he’s got them distracted…’

As soon as the words were out of his lips, Alex felt Ralph begin to slip towards the door. Alex whispered as he reached out to try and stop him.

‘Ralph! No!’

But he was gone. Alex’s fingertips brushed the edge of Ralph’s coat and his left index finger caught the boy’s red scarf, causing it to stay in Alex’s hand as Ralph fled towards the cellar door. Alex watched the boy, knowing that coming out of the alcove would be a very bad idea, praying that he would make it out safely, and then, just as Ralph made it to the stairs, going apparently unnoticed, Alex heard the loud crash of empty paint tins coming hurtling down the steps behind him.

Shit.

Suddenly, the guard who had been knocked out rose to his feet and swung around, pointing his gun at Ralph, and Alex snapped his eyes tightly shut as he heard the deafening roar of gunshot echo throughout the cellar.

No… Alex didn’t dare open his eyes for several seconds, and when he did, he felt his heart shatter. He watched as Stoltz pulled at the guard like a wild animal as Ralph’s body lay, lifeless on the cellar steps. Without even realising what he was doing, he felt himself rising to his feet and marching out of his hiding place towards the guards. Whilst Stoltz was busy with one of them, Alex sprang out and knocked the other unconscious. Then he turned to the other guard, who Stoltz already had restrained, and slugged him in the stomach, before wrestling his gun from his hands. ‘What have you done?’ he shouted. ‘He was just a child! What kind of animal are you?’ Alex held the guards own gun to his head and felt his finger tickling the trigger. A demonic smile came across Stoltz’s face. ‘Do it!’ he laughed. ‘Kill him… kill the vile pig!’

Alex looked the guard in the eye, his grip growing tighter on the trigger, tears streaming from his eyes.

‘You deserve to die,’ he said. ‘But I don’t deserve to be a killer.’ And with that, he marched up the cellar steps, gripping Ralph’s scarf tightly in his hand, and headed off in to the night.

It was time to go home.

Eighteen

Present Day

He sat in the park in the cold morning air, warming his hands in his pockets as he looked across at the glowing blue lights shooting out across the misty dusk from the ambulances and police cars outside his house. He had nowhere else to go… nothing else to do. As Alex sat on the bench, he didn’t even think about what he had done. His mind was clear; he just sat and breathed in the morning enjoying the little freedom he knew he had left.

They would find him. Of course they would find him. And he deserved to be arrested for what he had done; he knew that. He was out, but only for now.

They will find me. Let them come. Let them capture me. Let the game continue… what else is there to do?

In the meantime he sat in the safety of the park across the street from the crime scene. They’ll probably just think I’m some bum. I’ll hide in plain sight. If I want to escape I only have to know one thing; where to hide… where to hide.

For a fleeting second Alex thought about Annie. It was for the greater good. I could not bring a child into this world… and I could not suffer to see my wife go through the pain…

Then he saw them. Dressed in fluorescent yellow jackets and entering through the park gates. His entire body went numb as one of the two police officers pointed at him, and began to jog quickly towards him. Everything slowed down as the two men approached him and shared a nod with each other. They grabbed Alex by the shoulder and as they pulled him to his feet, his vision faded into a wash of colours. He was sure one of them was speaking to him as he felt the cold steel of handcuffs around his wrists, but he hid didn’t reply.

It was for the greater good, he thought.

After the Revolution - Part 7

Hello All, its that time of the week again. Here is part seven of After the Revolution. Below is a little refresher of the story so far. Enjoy!

Whilst testing his newly developed time machine, Alex finds himself in the year 2060. London, his home, has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a ruthless dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution that happened in the late 2030's. As he investigates this strange, yet familiar landscape, he is picked up by the POLA, Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. He is held in a dark cell with Ralph, a young orphan who is trying to survive in war torn streets London. The officers discover that Alex has no identity chip (a necessity for all citizens in 2060) and take him to see Wilson in person, suspecting that he may part of the counter revolution that is planning to end Wilson's rule. Wilson orders that Alex is made an example off, and sends him to the infamous Room Ten, where a man called McCarthy, a man who gets answers, waits for him...

Back in 2010, Alex has returned from his trip to the future, and his wife is left to deal with the silent terrified shell of a man that he has become. Gradually he becomes more edgy as he tries to come to terms with his experience. Slowly his silence and fear turn to anger and resentment as the marriage begins to fall apart. When Annie tells Alex that she is pregnant, everything changes. Alex becomes violent and in the middle of the night creeps into Annie's room to attack her and the baby growing inside of her...


After the Revolution - Part Seven


Fourteen

After the Revolution

As the guards slammed the door to Alex’s cell when the arrived back at the prison, he heard them muttering to each other.
‘…You go and bring the instruments,’ one said to the other, ‘I’ll go and prepare Room Ten.’
Ralph looked up at him and smiled, apparently just awake and glad to see his cellmate return. Alex smiled back as he sat down on the bench opposite.
‘Did they take you to see Wilson?’
Alex nodded.
‘I saw Wilson once, in a military parade.’ The boy looked down and began to fiddle with his fraying shoelaces. ‘What did he say to you?’
‘Lost of things.’
‘Like what?’
‘He said that I was a defector…’
The boy looked up at him. ‘Are you?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well…’ said Ralph, ‘…do you like Wilson?’
Alex laughed, knowing there could only ever be one answer to that question. ‘He held a gun to my face… and pulled the trigger.’
‘So, no, then. That makes you a defector.’
Alex smiled ‘I guess it does.’
After a long period of silence, Alex finally spoke. ‘What’s Room Ten?’
Ralph head snapped up and he looked Alex directly in the eyes, a look of terror washing over his face. ‘R… Room Ten?’
Alex nodded, judging from the boy’s reaction that Room Ten probably wasn’t a very nice place. ‘Yeah… what is it?’
Ralph looked down at his shoes again. ‘They took my father to Room Ten. Every night for two weeks he would return to his cell and cr… he would… he would-’
‘It’s okay, Ralph… if you don’t want to talk about it…’
‘No… no,’ replied the boy. ‘Its okay, I don’t mind.’ A melancholy smile crossed his lips and he looked back up at Alex. ‘They taught us about God and religion and all that stuff back when I went to school. Room Ten is probably the closest place on earth to hell. Wilson keeps a man named McCarthy in there.’
‘McCarthy?’
‘He gets answers… when defectors won’t talk… McCarthy makes them.’ The boy looked up at the shafts of light that poured in through the air vent on the door. ‘My father didn’t talk though… he would never have talked. When he came back to the cell, he was bruised… beaten black and blue with his back cut to ribbons; but he never told them a thing.’
The door clicked and slowly creaked open to reveal the two guards standing on the doorway.
‘Right,’ said the tallest one, ‘it’s time for you to meet McCarthy.’
As Alex began to get to his feet, Ralph suddenly shot up and looked at him. ‘They’re taking you to room ten?’ He ran towards the tallest guard and began beating his fist on his chest. ‘No… you can’t… don’t take-’
The guard pushed the boy’s head and sent him crashing in to a pile on the cell floor. Immediately, and without even thinking about it, Alex clenched his fist and swung it in to the guard’s stomach. ‘Don’t you touch him… he’s only a kid!’
The shorter guard grabbed Alex by the neck and restrained his hands as the taller caught his breath. ‘You dumb fuck,’ he said, before slamming his fist into Alex’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him and doubling up. ‘McCarthy’s gonna have some fun with you…’
Ralph cowered in the corner as they dragged his new friend out towards Room Ten, just as they had done all those years ago with his father.

At the end of a dark hallway, in the furthest corner of the prison, beyond the screamers and the prying eyes of the rest of the complex, was Room Ten. Alex put up little resistance as the two guards dragged him up to the door and swung it open, pushing him inside.
‘McCarthy will be here in a minute,’ said one of the guards as they pushed him up against a wall and bound his wrists with leather straps. He whispered ghoulishly into Alex’s ear. ‘…He’s not going to like you one bit.’ The guard ripped Alex’s shirt from his back and threw it to the ground.
Alex saw very little of the room before he was pushed face first into the wall and bound there. From the little he could see, the room looked completely bare aside from the shackles on the wall. The guards had left him now, and he stood with his face pressed against the brick wall, his heart thumping relentlessly in his chest. He stood there for the best part of ten minutes, before he heard the click of a door locking behind him and a voice hissing through the darkness.
‘It may take minutes, it may take days, or may take weeks,’ said the voice, ‘but what you know… you will tell me.’
Alex tried to turn around his head to see the man’s face, but as he did, he felt something lash out of nowhere and cut across his cheek, as he let out a yelp and turned back around, he realised that it was a whip.
‘Face the wall. Do not turn around, do you understand? Do not turn around or you will feel my whip again, is that understood?’
Alex was in too much pain to answer.
‘Is that understood?’ the man repeated himself, and before Alex had a chance to answer, he felt the searing pain of the man’s whip against his back. He fell to his knees, held up only by the shackles around his wrists, and mumbled as best he could through the pain. ‘…y… yes…’
‘I am McCarthy,’ boomed the man, ‘and I will be respected!’
He heard McCarthy beginning to pace behind him; the click, click, click of shoes against linoleum.
‘What do you know about the second revolution?’ pressed McCarthy. ‘Tell me about your leader, Jones…’
‘I don’t know anything about any revolution,’ coughed Alex, trying to find his feet again.
‘I’m not an Idiot, prisoner. Tell me what you know.’
Alex thought very carefully about what to say, but before he even had a chance to reply, he felt the searing pain of McCarthy’s whip lashing his back again. Tears began to stream down his eyes and as he fell to his feet, he thought about home. When he closed his eyes, for the briefest of seconds, he was there. He was there with Annie, back in a world that made sense.
But it wasn’t real, of course. The sharp blow of McCarthy’s whip brought him crashing back into his nightmare.
It seemed like hours they kept him in there. Beating him, trying to get answers to impossible questions… and what could Alex tell them? The truth? What could he tell them?
So McCarthy beat him as he stood in silence until he finally fell unconscious.



Fifteen

For seven days they kept taking him back to room ten; endless hours of mind numbing pain, exhaustion, and interrogation from McCarthy. Each night they would return his battered, wasted body to his cell, where he would lay by Ralph’s side in the darkness and try to imagine a better place. He dreamed of many things; desert islands, and city parks, he thought about the farm he grew up in and pictured himself running through the cornfields in the blistering June sun. All night he would lay there, half conscious, whisking himself away to far flung corners of his imagination, waiting for the morning, and for the whole ugly routine to begin again.
Sometimes Ralph’s voice would creep through the black.
‘Are you okay, mister?’ The boy tried his hardest to conceal the fact that he was crying.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look fine,’ said the boy, sniffing sadly.
‘Mister?’
‘Yeah?’ replied Alex.
‘Don’t tell them anything.’

On the seventh night, as they were laying in the darkness, Alex began to hear a sound. At first he put it down to his imagination, but as he listened closer, and saw that Ralph’s ears had pricked up too, he discovered that it was very real.
‘Its aeroplanes,’ said the boy. ‘Lots of them.’
‘Aeroplanes?’
Ralph nodded, a knowing look on his face. ‘It’s the Americans. It’s usually the Americans.’
Suddenly Alex heard a deafening roar coming from somewhere outside the prison walls. And then another. And another.
‘It’s an air strike,’ said Ralph.
Alex immediately sat up and listened as his home was destroyed, piece by piece around him.
‘Has this happened before?’
Ralph nodded, shifting closer towards Alex. ‘But never like this.’
The pair began to hear shouting coming from the hallway outside their cell, and the roar of a nearby anti-aircraft gun being fired.
‘They’re close, Alex…’
‘Come closer,’ said Alex, wincing under the pain of his back, but fuelled by a sudden rush of adrenaline, beckoning Ralph to the relative safety of his side.
All around them, the banging was getting louder, bomb after bomb fell and shot after shot was fired, building up to a massive crescendo, until they eventually heard the loudest one of all.
In a mist of flying rubble, Ralph and Alex watched as the wall to their cell was ripped from the ground and tossed into a crater in the prison yard outside.
The air was thick with dust, and Alex held the boy close to his chest, gripping him protectively.
‘You okay, Ralph?’
The boy coughed and tried to wave the dust away from his face. ‘Yeah… I think so. Something hit my arm.’
Alex looked down and saw a long graze along Ralph’s left arm. ‘It’s okay,’ he said comfortingly. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘Look,’ said Ralph, pointing out through the gaping hole in the cell wall and across the prison yard. ‘We’re free.’ He got up and began to run towards the opening.
‘Stop!’ shouted Alex, grabbing the boy’s shirt and pulling him back. ‘The guards… the watchtowers! We’ll get shot…’
‘This is the perfect opportunity!’ replied Ralph. ‘All of their guns will be pointing towards the sky. If we want to get out of here, then we need to go now.’
Alex looked deep into the boy’s eyes.
‘Do you want to go back to Room Ten, mister?’
Alex looked out across the yard, towards the miserable scraps of potential freedom he had left, and then again at the boy. As he felt the deep wounds on his back from McCarthy’s whip begin to burn, he knew he had already made his decision. He pushed the boy across the threshold and into the crater that had once been a prison yard. They kept their heads low as they crept through the unstable sea of rubble and loose earth towards the toppled perimeter fence.
‘Keep down,’ said Alex, ‘we don’t want to take any chances. As he ushered the thirteen year old boy across the waste, his heart leapt. Freedom. He could see the perimeter, it was only feet away, creeping up over the horizon of the crater.
Out of nowhere, a bullet roared in to the ground next Ralph’s feet, and they heard shouting coming from behind them.
‘Stop! Prisoners!’
Another bullet roared out, this time even closer than the last. Alex knew that if they could make it to the perimeter, they would be out of sight, so with every tiny bit of strength he had, he forced his legs forward faster. Ralph, who was not hindered by a week of McCarthy’s abuse had already reached the perimeter and was standing behind a tree beckoning his friend forward. ‘Come on Alex!’
As Alex reached the perimeter, he jumped out of the prison’s iron grip, and landed in the soft grass. Another shot rang out into the darkness as Alex pulled himself up and kept running into the trees, with Ralph at his side.
‘We should be safer now,’ said Alex between exhausted pants. ‘We need to find some place to hide in case they come out and look for us.’
They dashed through the thin patch of trees and found themselves running on a street, buildings reduced to rubble all around them. The bombing had grown less now and it seemed like the enemy aeroplanes were preparing to leave. As Alex turned his head to the sky, his foot caught on something and he came crashing down against the concrete pavement. He hit the ground hard, and when he turned and looked up, he saw a man standing over him. Alex had a feeling that he recognised the man.
‘Well well,’ said the man. ‘Alex, isn’t it?’
As Alex looked at the man’s limp hand holding a smouldering cigarette, he saw the long scar on his hand and knew instantly where he recognised him from.
‘And I said names didn’t matter.’
Alex didn’t say anything.
‘Stoltz; we met recently. In a prison van I believe it was.’
He stood, dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing over a week ago when they had first met, holding a hand out to Alex offering him up.
‘You in a hurry?’
‘Come on,’ said Ralph, pulling Alex forward. ‘They’re coming!’
As Alex took Stoltz’s hand and pulled himself off the ground, he heard shouting and gunfire coming from the trees.
‘They looking for you?’ said Stoltz.
Alex nodded.
‘Come with me. You’re one of us… I know where you can be safe.’
Seeing little other option, Alex and Ralph followed Stoltz down a dark street towards a door, which led down to an old pub cellar.
There they stood in the darkness, waiting for the POLA to pass.
‘We’ll be safe here,’ hissed Stoltz. ‘For now.’



Sixteen

Present Day

She couldn’t see anything at first. It was all black. Then, gradually, colours began to fade to life and she began to regain consciousness. She was staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, and every inch of her body burned and ached. Had he really tried to kill her? Was she really still alive? Suddenly all of her thoughts turned to the baby growing inside her. Oh God… he’s killed my baby.
With all of her strength, she held her hands up to her stomach, stroking it protectively. It’s going to be okay…
She pulled herself up to a sitting position and reached up on to her dressing table, desperately trying to find her mobile phone. Eventually she felt it slip between her fingers and she pulled it down and held it to her face. She desperately tapped in 999 and held it to her ear, unsure if she even had enough strength to complete the call.
She heard a click as the operator answered.
‘Hello, what service to you require?’
‘I… need an ambulance.’

The Children of Disobedience - Part 2

Hello all, here is part two of a piece that I posted a few weeks back, 'The Children of Disobedience', which follows Thomas on his journey through the depths of Hell. To refresh yourself with the story, please see my post The Children of Disobedience - Part 1.
Enjoy, and as ever, thanks for reading!



The Children of Disobedience - Part Two

II

He clawed his way though the sea of twisted, tormented faces and tried to find a suitable place to stand. There was none, of course. Every inch of the ship’s deck was crammed with wretched, lost souls like himself. As he stood amongst them, he took a deep breath in and smelled the thick, fetid air. Suddenly, through the wailing, he heard a voice beside him.

‘It’s disgusting, isn’t it?’

He turned to see an old man sitting to his right who was looking at him. The man looked exhausted, his face completely colourless.

‘The air,’ continued the man.

‘What is that stench?’ he replied.

The man coughed, before rising to his feet and looking around him. ‘That is the stench of hell. And it never gets better. It keeps changing; every instant it turns in to a new reek, each more vile than the one that preceded it, so no matter how long you are immersed in it, your nose never gets used to it… you are always aware of it.’

‘How long have you been immersed in it, friend?’ he asked.

The old man looked around and coughed again. ‘I cannot say. Such thing as time does not exist in this place. There are no days and nights down here – that is a luxury that was saved for the righteous. I know it cannot be, but I feel like I have been here for eternity all ready. There is no sleep – no respite. Just waiting…’

‘Do you have a name, friend?’ he asked.

‘I did, once,’ replied the old man, ‘but names serve no purpose down here.’

‘And what did your name used to be?’

‘I was James, long ago,’ said the man.

‘I’m Thomas.’

~

Thomas perched as best he could next to James as the ship began to move, slowly but steadily underneath them.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Thomas.

‘Back into the darkness,’ coughed James. ‘Back where this ship has already been a thousand times before. It sails along the crimson river beneath us stopping at various ports on the way as it makes it’s descent into the abyss.’

‘And why do we stop? What happens at these ports?’

James looked at the ground and then back up at the thick grey clouds above him. ‘People come… and go. Those creatures…’ he nodded towards a hooded figure standing at the edge of the deck, ‘...when the ship docks, they walk off into the red mountains and return with more people like you and I. And they bring them here, stripped naked to the deck of this ship to await judgement.’ James looked around at the sea of tormented faces and sighed a long, pained sigh. ‘And some people go. When they have faced judgement, they depart at the chosen dock… where they will find the punishment that is appropriate for their earthly sins.’

‘And that will happen to all of us?’

‘All that was once man will soon be dust. This was the Lords plan all along.’

Thomas’s eyes caught sight of a young girl, a few feet across from him, sitting on the deck. She was weeping and wailing into her hands and repeating over and over some words that he could not understand.

‘Who is that child? Why does she weep so?’ he asked the old man.

‘That child?’ he replied, nodding towards the girl. ‘She took the wrong path. Only one faith can truly follow the word of God… only one faith is the righteous one. She was born into the wrong one.’

The girl repeated the same incoherent sentences again and again.

‘Hour on end she sits there, weeping and repeating the doctrine that her parents taught her so well – she prays that this is a test of faith… that the true God will rescue her from this sinner’s hell.’

‘But she is only a child,’ replied Thomas. ‘How great can her sins be that she has earned a place in this fiery eternity?’

‘She was taught the wrong things by the only people she could trust. That is her only crime.’

‘But what kind of God would make that judgement?’

‘The only God there is.’

Thomas began to push his way through the sea of people towards the girl, his fatherly instincts suddenly bursting to the surface. He wanted to comfort the girl… what sins could she have committed?

As he struggled through the weeping, terrified souls towards the girl, there was suddenly a commotion off to his right and he stopped and turned to see what it was. A man was climbing the railing at the ship’s edge and stood up straight for only a moment before diving off the side in to the blood red river.

Thomas turned around and looked back towards James who had caught sight of the man too. ‘He escaped!’ he shouted. ‘He jumped over the side of the ship!’ He pushed his way back towards his companion. ‘He has escaped… there is hope!’ he shouted. ‘If he can do it, then we all can, James!’

James was not moved by his enthusiasm. ‘Where will he go?’ he said.

‘He will swim to freedom!’ replied Thomas, a feeling of hope creeping through him. ‘He will escape this place. He has escaped!’

‘Where can he go? He will wash up on the riverbank like all the rest. Then they will bring him back. He could jump off the ship a hundred times… a thousand times, and it wouldn’t make any difference. There is no escape from this hell.’ James coughed and looked up through black, exhausted eyes. ‘There is no escape – you can be quite sure of that. Our Lord made it so.’

After the Revolution - Part 6

Well well, Friday again (well, as I write this it's only nearly Friday), and here's part six of 'After the Revolution' - but first, a quick recap to refresh the story in our minds...

Whilst testing his newly developed time machine, Alex finds himself in the year 2060. London, his home, has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a ruthless dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution that happened in the late 2030's. As he investigates this strange, yet familiar landscape, he is picked up by the POLA, Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. He is held in a dark cell with Ralph, a young orphan who is trying to survive in war torn streets London. The officers discover that Alex has no identity chip (a necessity for all citizens in 2060) and take him to see Wilson in person, suspecting that he may part of the counter revolution that is planning to end Wilson's rule.

Back in 2010, Alex has returned from his trip to the future, and his wife is left to deal with the silent terrified shell of a man that he has become. Gradually he becomes more edgy as he tries to come to terms with his experience. Slowly his silence and fear turn to anger and resentment as the marriage begins to fall apart. When Annie tells Alex that she is pregnant, everything changes...



After the Revolution - Part Six


Twelve

(After the Revolution)

Alex was almost drifting off to sleep when the engine ground to a halt again. After they had knocked out Stoltz and he felt more secure – and alone for the first time since he had arrived - his eyelids began to grow heavy.
When the engine stopped, he was jolted awake and he looked around himself. Suddenly all he could hear was the rain drumming on the steel roof. He looked out of the window. It looked like he had arrived in another courtyard, and four armed guards were running through an archway to meet the vehicle. Within seconds, the huge doors came creaking open again, and a man stepped into the doorway out of the rain. He wasn’t one of the guards who had brought him here - he wore a different uniform and had no cloak. He stood in silence looking at Alex.
The man said nothing for several seconds; he just stood there looking down on Alex.
‘Is this him?’ he said to one of the guards.
Another guard now stood in the doorway. ‘Yes sir.’
The man walked deeper into the body of the vehicle and pointed to Stoltz, who was lying unconscious on the floor. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Stoltz got a little… rambunctious. We had to put him to sleep, sir. You know what he’s like.’
The man turned and looked at Alex as he spoke to he guard. ‘Get him inside, Wilson’s waiting.’ He turned and kicked Stoltz. ‘And get this piece of shit out of my sight.’
‘Yes sir.’
Two of the guards who had brought him here bundled into the back of the truck and pulled Alex up by his handcuffs, forcing him out into the courtyard. The rain was so heavy that Alex was instantaneously drenched as he fell onto the concrete. The man with no cloak stepped out and towered over him, his face like stone.
‘Who are you, prisoner?’ he said, half shouting to make himself audible over the rain. ‘Where have you come from?’
Alex lay on the concrete, soaked and shivering, not saying a word.
‘Who are you?’
Alex timidly replied. ‘Are you… Wilson?’
The man broke his stony face and smiled. ‘I’m Sergeant Wilson. Wilson is my father.’
The tiny smile gave way to a look of rage as the man lifted his boot and kicked Alex hard in the stomach. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, prisoner?’ He kicked Alex again, then stood back. ‘I ask the questions.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Take him inside.’
Alex held his hands to his stomach as the guards dragged him through a stone archway and into the building. It looked like an army barracks. Cloaked guards milled about everywhere, each one of them carrying large guns.
Alex was pushed up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway.
‘Stop here.’
Sergeant Wilson pushed him up against the wall and brought his nose only centimetres from Alex’s. ‘A few rules before you go in. You don’t speak to Wilson unless asked a direct question. Is that clear?’
Terrified, Alex didn’t reply, which cost him a punch in the stomach. ‘Is that clear, prisoner?’
‘Y… yes…’
‘When he enters the room you will salute him in the usual manner.’
Not eager to receive another blow to the stomach, Alex agreed. ‘Yes.’
Whet the hell is the ‘usual manner’?
‘Now… go and wait for him.’ The man opened a door into a dark room and pushed Alex in, throwing him on to a wooden seat. ‘He’ll be in shortly.’
Sergeant Wilson left the room, slamming the door behind him. Alex sat in total darkness now, awaiting Wilson’s arrival.
What a mess I’m in. Alex thought about his workshop. How he longed to be sitting tinkering in there; how he longed for normality. He suddenly felt a very long way from home.
He sat there for nearly five minutes, tormented by the darkness, and tormented by memories of his former life, waiting for something to happen. Silently he waited for Wilson, the only name that seemed to be on anyone’s lips in this place.
After a while, he heard a click through the darkness and a shuffling at the other end of the room. He didn’t dare move from his seat. He didn’t dare say a word.
In a terrifying split-second, a blinding light blazed to life in front of Alex’s face. Instinctively snapping his eyes shut, he listened out for any trace of life – footsteps… breathing… anything. He heard nothing.
Just silence. Silence and blinding light. And then, at last, he spoke.
‘I know who you are, you know.’ The words were strong and perfectly enunciated, and they seemed to slip out of nowhere. ‘I know what you want.’
Alex looked around, but the light was so bright that he couldn’t see a thing.
‘I know who you are, boy. And you’re going to tell us everything you know. My name is Wilson… and you will respect me.’
‘Please sir…’ said Alex. ‘I think you have mistaken me for someone else. I have no quarrel-’
Alex felt a blunt object slam hard into the side of his head.
‘I ask the questions, here. Is that clear?’
‘Y… yes.’ Alex’s left temple began to throb as he fought through the pain. He squinted into the light as he heard footsteps approaching him.
‘What is your identification number, prisoner?’
Alex hadn’t the faintest idea how to reply.
‘Answer the question, prisoner.’
‘I don’t have one.’
Wilson laughed. ‘And why is that?’
Alex paused before answering, fighting through the throbbing pain in his head. ‘I was never given one.’
‘But how can that be?’ Wilson seemed to be enjoying the game. ‘How can it be that you were never given an identification number?’
Alex heard the footsteps move to behind the light.
‘They tell me you don’t have a chip either. Did you remove it?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I was never given one.’
‘Well then, if you don’t have a number, then I assume you have a name…’
‘Alex.’
Wilson paused for a long time before replying. ‘Well, Alex. There are only two kinds of men in London just now who have no ID number and no chip.’ Wilson lowered his face to just above the light, and Alex could now just make out the shape of his jaw line and lips.
‘Dead men and traitors. Dead men and traitors, Alex – and since you are not dead, not yet anyway, I have to assume that you are the latter.’
Alex was bursting to profess his innocence and tell them it was all a big mistake. He knew that wasn’t a good idea, though. Last time it had cost him a blow to the temple.
‘Who is it, Alex?’ continued Wilson. ‘Who is it you’re working for? The Americans? Russia? I will not be made a fool of. Tell me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ replied Alex, timidly. ‘I’m not working for anybody.’
Suddenly Alex felt the tip of a blade pierce his throbbing temple ever so slightly and he froze.
‘Don’t fuck with me. I’ve been at war long enough to know when I’m being lied to by the enemy. You don’t have a chip, so you’re clearly not just some bum or refugee. Tell me now, Alex, or I will plunge this into your brain. Imagine how it would be to die because of a metal spike being pushed… slowly… into your brain.’
Alex had the worst headache of his life, and he sat shaking, feeling Wilson beginning to apply more pressure little by little. ‘I don’t know… I’m not working for anyone. I’m not meant to be here!’
Wilson laughed, pulling the spike from Alex’s head as he breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Of course you’re not meant to be here. You know, The British Empire would be the greatest the world had ever known right now if not for little shits like you. Traitors.’
Out of the light, Alex saw a foot come flying out of nowhere which kicked him in the stomach, which sent him flying, chair and all, backwards onto the floor. Suddenly, Wilson stepped out into the light, towering over Alex. He was a hulking giant of a man, and he pushed his foot into Alex’s stomach. As he pulled a gun and held it in front of him, Alex squirmed as much as his restrained body would allow him. This is it; I’m going to die.
‘I will be respected,’ boomed Wilson.
A shot roared out of the barrel of the gun and Alex felt every muscle in his body tighten. He prepared himself for the end. He couldn’t feel any wound. Is this death? He didn’t feel any different.
Slowly he opened his eyes and saw the large gouge in the floor tile next to his head where the bullet had impacted. He hadn’t even realised Wilson stepping away and walking towards the door. He was shouting to one of the guards.
‘Take him to room ten. Get answers. If we cannot get answers, he will be made an example of.’



Thirteen

(Present Day)

‘I know where you’ve been going…’
She heard the voice clear as day and opened her eyes instantly. As she sat up in her bed, Annie caught a glimpse of the clock on her bedside table, displaying the time in fluorescent green numbers. Three twenty six.
He was standing in the doorway with his hands behind his back, looking across at her, silhouetted against the hall light.
She was wide awake. She was pretty sure she hadn’t really slept at all anyway. Her eyes were heavy and red from crying as she strained to see the menacing figure at the end of her bedroom.
‘It’s late, Alex.’ She pulled the covers protectively up to her chin. ‘What do you want?’
‘I know where you’ve been going.’ He repeated himself, his voice emotionless. ‘I know what you’ve been doing.’
‘What have I been doing?’ snapped Annie, forcing confidence as she tried to block out the guilt she was feeling.
He was silent.
‘Go on, what are you going to accuse me of now? Sleeping around?’
She was guilty; she knew it, too. As much as she tried to convince herself that he had driven her to it, or that it was somehow the right thing to do… she was guilty. Two nights ago she had spent the night with another man – the man she had kissed in the nightclub. He had given her his number, and in a moment of weakness, Annie had called him.
‘Go on, accuse me, Alex… but I’m not the one at fault here-’
Alex interrupted. ‘Where were you on Tuesday night?’
‘Out.’
‘Out where?’’
‘OUT!’ she shouted. ‘Just out, okay?’ Suddenly tears began to well in her eyes and she began to sob pathetically.
‘So it’s true…’
Annie didn’t reply, she just wept into the bed sheets.
‘How long has it been going on?’
Slowly she felt her guilt and regret turn into anger. He’s ignored me for three weeks! He told me he doesn’t want our baby… why am I in the wrong?
‘Are you surprised, Alex? You haven’t spoken to me for weeks! You… you’ve slept god knows where… I’m a stranger in my own house. You appear one night with your back torn to ribbons and expect me not to ask any questions? I’m sick, Alex. I’m sick of this… You have no idea what you have put me through…’
‘What I have put you through…?’ Alex’s face began to twist into a look of rage. ‘What I have put you through…? You have no idea what I have been through… you have no idea what I have seen…’ He edged closer, one tiny step at a time. ‘You have NO idea what I have been through…’
‘What?’ snapped Annie. ‘What have you been through? Tell me! How the hell am I supposed to sympathise with you when you won’t speak to me? What did you see, Alex?’
Alex stopped walking and stood, saying nothing in the middle of the room.
‘What did you see?’ shouted Annie, sitting up even further in her bed. Suddenly her tone softened as she felt a pang of sympathy. ‘What did you see that made you this way…?’
Alex stood in silence for a very long time before he eventually replied. ‘I can’t tell you. I can never tell you. Never…’
‘Please Alex… I… I need to know…’
Alex’s head shot up and he looked his wife in the eye. ‘But I know… I know, and look what it’s done to me. You can never know… I should never have found out… it’s too much for anyone to know…’ He began slowly walking towards her again.
‘You’re not making any sense, Alex,’ replied Annie, feeling suddenly very intimidated by her husband’s approach.
‘I know… I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen Hell, Annie… I’ve seen Hell, and I don’t want you to see it, too. I’m gonna save you, Annie. I can’t raise a child in this world… I can’t… I mustn’t…’
He was only a couple of feet away from the bedside now, and stood towering over Annie, looking down through red, bloodshot eyes.
‘Alex… what are you talking about? You’re scaring me…’
‘I’m gonna save you from Hell, Annie. I’m sorry…’
Annie ducked away to the other side of the bed just in time to miss the iron bar that her husband had pulled from behind his back and brought crashing down over the bed. She screamed as it missed her face by inches. Terrified, she jumped out of the bed and ran to the other side of the room. My own husband’s trying to kill me. He lurched towards her menacingly, clearly unhappy that he had missed his first shot. Annie looked around her. She was trapped; the window was locked and the only way out was through the door, which he was blocking. She looked around for anything to defend herself with – but saw nothing. She knew she only had one option… try to make a run for it.
In the split second she made the decision, she felt her feet begin to move and make a dash for the door. As she got about halfway there, she felt a sudden moment of hope. I’m going to make it!
That fleeting moment of hope was instantly ripped at the seams as she felt the cold burn of steel hit her in the thigh and her legs began to give way. She came tumbling to the floor and instinctively wrapped her hands around her stomach to protect her unborn baby. As she hit the ground, she saw Alex looking down at her through wild, terrifying eyes.
‘P… please…’
Annie saw a fleeting flash of silver before everything went dark.

After the Revolution - Part 5

Hello All,

Apologies that this was not posted on Friday, sadly I don't have the excuse of being ill this time... Anyway here is the fifth part of my novella 'After the Revolution.'

If you missed any of the previous parts, or just need a wee reminder of what's going on, please check out parts 1 - 4 in my previous posts. Thank you once again for taking the time to read my work.


After the Revolution - Part Five


Ten

(After the Revolution)

It was raining when three of the cloaked guards marched Alex outside to the transport. It was there, in that dismal courtyard, through the steel mesh of the perimeter fence that he caught his second glimpse of the future, only this time in the dismal light of the morning. It looked as though the bombing had stopped, and great rushing torrents of rain washed across the cracked and twisted skyline, dousing the fires in its path.
‘Get in.’ The biggest guard motioned towards the open doors of an armoured vehicle that sat in the courtyard in front of Alex. ‘Go on, move.’
Alex climbed in, with his hands fastened securely behind his back, taking one more look at the battered remains of the city he once called home.
‘Sit down and stay down. This won’t take long.’
The guard held his gun up to another man who was also sitting in the armoured vehicle, opposite Alex. ‘I don’t want any trouble from you, neither, Stoltz.’
The man smiled demonically at the guard. ‘Of course not. I’ll be good as gold… promise.’
The guard sneered and slammed the doors shut.
Alex looked up at the man across from him as the vehicle began to roar to life beneath him and smiled uncomfortably.
The man smiled back and looked over at Alex through wild, crazy eyes. ‘What’s your name?’
Alex cleared his throat and spoke timidly. ‘A… Alex.’
‘I’m Stoltz. That’s always the first thing we ask, isn’t it? What’s your name? Like it even makes a fucking difference. You could be George of Jim and it would all be the same to me.’
Something in the man terrified Alex. He looked unstable, and never stopped smiling. ‘I suppose names don’t matter much, especially now. They taking you to the lock up as well?’
Alex tried his best not to make eye contact with the man.
Nodding, he replied. ‘I guess so.’
‘What did you do?’
Alex didn’t reply.
‘Yeah,’ said Stoltz, ‘I didn’t do nothing either.’
Through a tiny window on the side of the vehicle, Alex saw the ruined city tear past. The streets were grey and vacant. The world outside seemed completely colourless, with not a single patch of green to be seen. Greys and blacks everywhere; smoke and ash. Alex thought he saw an arm creeping out from underneath a pile of debris on the roadside, but the vehicle was moving so fast, he lost sight of it.
‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ sneered Stoltz, unashamedly staring Alex in the eyes. ‘You live amongst it this long you begin to forget what it used to be like.’
Stoltz closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, trying to visualise it. ‘Grass. Lots of grass and trees. I can’t remember the last time I saw the colour green. What’s the point in having colour vision if all there is to see is a million shades of grey? A million shades of grey… and red, of course, blood red.’ The man leaned forward and spoke directly to Alex. ‘You’ll remember what it was like. You’re just old enough I’ll wager. Do you remember? Do you remember what it was like to look out of your window, and the only smoke you’d see would be billowing out of chimneys? Do you remember when the only falling bombs you would see were on the television…?’
Alex looked at the ground and nodded.
‘It seems like a world away now,’ continued Stoltz. ‘You a defector?’
‘So the guards tell me.’
‘They call us the crazy ones.’ Stoltz raised his voice to shouting. ‘Bullshit! We’re not the fucking crazy ones. We’re not the ones starting wars with everyone any anyone. We’re not the ones destroying our country. No… Wilson’s already taken care of that.’ Stoltz nodded towards the driver’s cab. ‘But I had them fooled. I’ve been out for months… and they couldn’t track me. I found a way to escape them…’
Alex looked up at the man, who pulled his right hand from behind his back, his handcuffs pulling the left in turn, and held it in front of him.
‘I found a way to stay off radar.’ There was a long scar down his right wrist, which he looked at, almost with pride. ‘I de-chipped myself. If you were smart you’d do the same thing.’
‘I don’t have a chip.’
‘You don’t? How in hell did you manage that?
Alex was silent.
‘Well, they know now – you’ll have one soon enough.’
‘That’s why they’re taking me to see Wilson,’ mumbled Alex.
‘Wilson?’ said Stoltz, his eyes widening even further. ‘They’re taking you to see Wilson? What the hell did you do to deserve that honour?’
Alex shrugged.
‘I’d be a little more worried if I were you, mate.’ He lowered his voice to a little over a whisper. ‘You’ll be lucky to come out of there alive.’
‘Wh… what do you mean?’ asked Alex, feeling a sudden wave of terror rush through him.
‘Come on mate, have you been living in a cave all your life? You know what he’s like.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘You know what he’s capable of…’
‘What?’ replied Alex, sheepishly.
‘You’ve heard the stories. You know what he did. They say he killed his own parents – that’s where he gets his whole mantra from. Power, Strength, Freedom. No guidance… he had lousy parents. They say his own father tried to kill him when he was just a baby.’ He sighed and looked out of the window. ‘Shit, I’d probably be just as twisted as him if I knew that. There’s one hell of an Oedipus complex if ever I saw one… except instead of sleeping with his mother, he killed her too.’ Stoltz smiled demonically. ‘And he’s the man in charge. He’s the one who was supposed to return Britain to the people! Instead, he tries to rebuild the bloody empire, and gets us all blown up in the process.’
Stoltz stood up, trying his best to stay stable under the swaying of the vehicle underneath, and began shouting. ‘And all in the name of our glorious leader… Hail Wilson! Power! Strength! Freedom!’ He stumbled over to Alex and spoke only two inches from his face, showering Alex with saliva. ‘But they won’t keep me long, you can count on that. I’ll be out of here before you can say power, strength, freedom. Save yourself, mate,’ he said, hissing into Alex’s ear. ‘Don’t let them chip you. Don’t let Wilson get to you. Stay strong, brother.’
Suddenly he began leaping around wildly in the back of the vehicle, thrashing off every wall and repeating again and again at the top of his lungs:
‘Power! Strength! Freedom! - Power! Strength! Freedom! Power! Strength! Freedom! - Power! Strength! Freedom!’
He rattled his head against the wall that backed onto the driver’s cab and screamed ‘can you hear me? Can you hear me you vile pigs? Power! Strength! Freedom!’
Alex pulled himself into a corner, trying to keep a safe distance between himself and the prisoner that was violently lashing himself off the walls. Suddenly he felt the engine cough to a stop and the vehicle become stationary.
Stoltz stood in front of the doors and screamed again. ‘Come and get me! Power! Strength! Freedom!’ He turned to Alex, and spoke in a slightly softer voice. ‘Don’t let them get you…’
Within seconds, the steel doors to the armoured vehicle came flying open and two guards jumped in and began to restrain Stoltz. The largest kicked him in the knees and sent him tumbling to the ground. Sitting on him to keep him down, the guard pulled a syringe from his vest and plunged it into his arm, spitting into his ear as he spoke.
‘I thought I said no trouble, Stoltz. Night night.’
Alex looked down at Stoltz as the other guard held a gun in his face, making sure he didn’t attempt an escape. Even as he drifted into unconsciousness, Stoltz still smiled demonically, muttering under his breath.

‘Power… Strength… Freedom…’




Eleven

(Present Day)

It had only been a kiss. A stupid kiss. He had put the idea in her head, of course. That’s what she told herself, anyway. As Annie unlocked her front door, she held her collar up to her nose and sniffed it in case it smelled of aftershave. It seemed okay. Best go wash up anyway. The door clicked behind her and she strode quickly up the hall towards the bathroom. He’s here. Somewhere. He’s always here.
She listened out for her husband, but hearing nothing, she darted into the bathroom and began to fill the sink. He was different now. Ever since she had told him that she was pregnant, he had changed. He was less vacant; the news seemed to have kick started something inside him, bringing him a little more into the land of the living. He was at least, now, showing some emotion.
Too bad they’re not good emotions. He had been irritable since she had given him the news.
And I kissed someone.
It was just ‘some’ guy at ‘some’ bar, and she knew it didn’t mean anything. He drove me to it; He thinks I’m having an affair… why don’t I damn well have one?
She knew she couldn’t do that. That one lousy kiss had left her feeling wretched enough. She splashed water onto her face and looked into the mirror. She barely recognised the woman staring back. Wrinkles had begun to form in the corners of her eyes and she looked tired. Exhausted.
‘Annie…’ The voice was only a whisper that floated in from behind her. She jumped, and as she moved to her left, she saw him there, in the mirror standing in the doorway.
‘Annie…’
‘Alex.’
She turned around to face him, leaning against the sink with water dripping from her cheeks and long black streaks that ran down her cheeks where her mascara had leaked.
‘I need to talk to you, Annie.’
Annie was silent, and she reached out for a towel to dry her face. She could see he was trying his best to be normal.
Alex repeated himself. ‘I need to talk to you…’
Annie turned back around towards the mirror, flaunting faux confidence. ‘It’s been two weeks.’ She straightened her hair and watched her husband’s reflection. ‘Now you want to talk? You disappear in a flash one night, return seconds later with a beard… then you ignore me for two weeks and now you want to talk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well… go on then. What happened to you that night?’
Alex sighed, holding his hand up to his forehead. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered.
‘What?’
‘I can’t,’ he replied, raising his voice. ‘I can’t tell you. I… I can’t tell you. Believe me-’
‘Well then what the hell is it you wanted to talk to me about, Alex?’ said Annie, turning around. ‘Do you think we can just chat and return to normal… like nothing’s happened? You need to tell me what’s going on…’ she gestured to his head ‘…up there.’
‘I need to talk to you about… the baby.’
Annie was silent as a tear began to form in the corner of her eye.
‘The baby,’ she snapped. ‘The baby that you don’t want.’
‘Annie,’ he said, his brow creasing, ‘I’m… I’m not well. I can’t have a baby. We can’t have a baby. We can’t bring a child into…’ he held his arm out ‘…this.’
‘This?’ said Annie. ‘This? You created this! You created this with that bloody machine of yours.’ She began to cry.
‘You have to get rid of it, Annie.’ He spoke with confidence. There was no uncertainty in his voice.
Annie began to cry louder, her face reddening. ‘Get rid of it? It’s not some piece of rubbish you can just throw away. It’s a baby… a tiny life. Our child, Alex. How can you be so cold?’
Alex looked at the ground. ‘Get an abortion, Annie. You have to. I can’t have a child. Not now.’
‘I can’t!’ she screamed. ‘I won’t. This is our baby, not yours! I won’t… I won’t…’
Annie supported herself on the sink and watched as Alex began to turn around.
‘If you don’t get rid of that baby, then I can’t stay here anymore.’ He marched out of the room and down the hall.
Annie fell to the ground underneath the sink and sat on the tiles stroking her stomach protectively.
‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll always keep you safe.’