The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection
Page 1
The Dystopiaville Omnibus
Mark Gillespie
This is a work of speculative fiction. All of the events and dialogue depicted within are a product of the author’s overactive imagination. None of this stuff happened. Except maybe in a parallel universe.
Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gillespie
www.markgillespieauthor.com
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
First Printing: May 2020
Cover by Vincent Sammy
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Contents
Shut Up and Die!
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
The End
WaxWorld
Part I
A Few Years From Now…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part II
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part III
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
The End
Killing Floor
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The End
Other Books by Mark Gillespie
After the End
Exterminators
The Future of London (Books 1-5)
The Butch Nolan Series
After the End Trilogy
The Future of London
The Exterminators Trilogy
Apocalypse No.1
GrimLog (Tales of Terror)
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Website/Social Media
Shut Up and Die!
Part I
The Quiet Lands
Chapter 1
Reggie Ward leaned his spindly frame against the black SUV parked in the driveway.
“Hurry up girls,” he said, staring at the front door of the house. “We should have been on the road five minutes ago.”
He looked at his watch.
“Seven minutes ago.”
A hot itch flared up on the back of Reggie’s neck. It felt like a tiny insect had clamped onto his skin; now it gnawed away as if his neck was a delicious ear of sweet corn.
He could feel the neighbours watching from behind. It always made Reggie uncomfortable, that prickly feeling of being watched and he was hypersensitive to its presence. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the curtains shudder in the house directly across the street. That was the Watkins’ house. That nosey old coot Watkins, along with some of the other neighbours on Mulberry Street were perched behind their windows, watching events unfold with interest while they listened to the Schedule or some other garbage. They wouldn’t miss this for the world. The resident silence huggers were going on a trip and here was Daddy Silence, waiting in the driveway for Mummy Silence and the teenage girls to come out and join him.
It was riveting stuff. Killer entertainment.
“Keeping you waiting are they Reggie?”
Reggie’s head turned back to the front.
Mike Talbot was standing in the next-along doorway, dressed in an open plaid shirt and pale jeans. A pair of X-15 headphones, size jumbo, hung loosely around the man’s neck like a piece of high-tech tribal jewellery.
Reggie groaned quietly.
Of course. Like the rest of the neighbours, Talbot had been watching too. Reggie hadn’t failed to notice the dark shadowy figure lurking behind the stained glass panels on Talbot’s front door. He’d stood there for at least five minutes before coming out.
“Hi Mike,” Reggie said with forced cheerfulness. “Yeah, they’re keeping me waiting.”
“Women are good at that,” Talbot said.
He stumbled onto the garden path, his enormous belly pushing the plaid shirt outwards. There was no other way of putting it – Talbot looked like a pregnant man nine months in.
“Doesn’t matter what you say to ’em,” he said. “If you tell a woman let’s leave at ten o’clock darling you know you’re not going anywhere until twenty-five to eleven at the earliest. Am I right? God help them, I don’t think they can do anything about it. There’s a delay mechanism built into every woman on this planet. Well listen up Reggie, what I do is I play around with the departure time. Know what I mean?”
Talbot lowered his voice, as if divulging a golden secret for the men’s ears only.
“Chop a little off the edge, you understand? The edge of your departure time. The missus asks me when we’re going out and I say we’re leaving at ten o’clock oh love of my life. In actual fact we don’t need to leave the house until half ten but because of that female delay thingamajig she’ll be ready to leave exactly when I want her to. Half past ten. Everyone’s a winner. The poor little things are never the wiser because they don’t know you’re pulling all the strings. They’re happy because you’re happy.”
“Thanks Mike,” Reggie said. “That’s ummm…genius.”
He pushed the horn-rimmed glasses up off his nose. Then he went to the back of the car for a second time, making sure all the bags were packed in the boot. Of course they were.
Meanwhile Talbot was checking on something in a garden where there was nothing to check. The Talbots’ garden was a fifteen by twenty foot block of dull, miserable grass, not a single flower or dash of colour anywhere. Even the weeds leaned towards the gate, like they wanted to be somewhere else.
Talbot strolled back to the front door. He turned around and his ferret-like eyebrows stood up as he tuned his attention to the Schedule, which as always, was droning away in the background. It was the Political Hour and the Schedule was spitting out a monotonous discussion about the upcoming local elections. Reggie did his best to shut out the noise but it was harder to avoid the grotesque sight of all those speakers stretching from one end of Mulberry Street to the other. They were every bit as frequent as the streetlights. In this particular neighbourhood, each speaker was attached to a long metal beam that stretched fifteen to twenty feet off the ground with a tip that curved over at the end, suspending the lightweight but powerful amplifier over the street.
9.47am. The host was speculating on the private life of Marty Russell, one of the more popular candidates in the election. Instead of talking about Russell’s policies however, the host was asking listener
s to call in and give their opinion on whether or not they thought the handsome and debonair Russell was any good in the sack.
In thirteen minutes a trashy gossip show would replace the Political Hour.
Reggie hoped to be on the road by then.
He shivered. It was a chilly autumn morning and all the trees in suburbia were skeletons, stripped bare. A whistling breeze blew a huddle of yellow and brown leaves along the street in a clumsy dance.
“Going anywhere nice?” Talbot asked.
“Highlands,” Reggie said. He deliberately avoided using the term ‘quiet lands’. Talbot didn’t need to know just how far north the Wards were going although he’d probably guessed. He was stupid but not that stupid.
“Hotel?” Talbot asked. “Camping?”
“Nope,” Reggie said.
Talbot smiled through clenched teeth. He was about to say something else when he heard the sound of the Ward’s front door opening.
A moment later, Terri Ward strolled through the open doorway and approached the car. She was smiling. Fern and Ellie Ward trailed a few paces behind their mother.
Reggie shook his head at their lack of urgency, but at the same time he was relieved at the thought of getting away from Talbot.
“At last,” he said, trying to keep his voice down.
Terri didn’t respond.
Talbot’s eyes popped as he watched Terri walk across the driveway. Even in casual travelling clothes – a grey sweater and pale blue jeans – Mrs Ward cut a glamorous figure in the otherwise dull suburban neighbourhood.
“All set,” Terri said, grinning at Reggie as if she was five minutes early. Fern and Ellie trudged to opposite sides of the car in silence. Both girls were miniature versions of their mother, blonde and immaculately well groomed. They were dressed in slacks too, keeping things comfortable for the long journey ahead of them.
Ellie paused next to the SUV. She threw a disdainful glance at the long row of speakers that lined both sides of Mulberry Street. Reggie watched as her thumb and forefinger formed a pistol shape. Ellie fired an imaginary round off in the direction of the noise then climbed into the backseat.
Reggie smiled. That’s my girl.
Terri made a brief U-turn towards the house and double-checked that the front door was locked.
She waved at Talbot who was watching her every move.
“Morning Mike.”
“I’ll keep an eye on the house for you Terri,” Talbot said, waving back. “Don’t you guys worry about a thing while you’re up there in the quiet lands. Ooops, I mean the Highlands.”
He sniggered, making no effort to hide his amusement.
Reggie wanted to walk over and slap Talbot on the face. But Reggie Ward wasn’t the type of guy to start a fistfight in public.
That’s what he had to remind himself of every day.
“Thanks Mike,” Terri said, walking back over to the car. “Say hello to Laura for me won’t you?”
“Sure thing,” Talbot said.
That wild, hungry look in his eyes expanded as he followed Terri’s route from the house to the SUV.
“Any new TV shows coming out Terri?” Talbot said, talking over the Schedule, which was a dreary and permanent hum at their backs. “How about something else besides all those serious dramas? What about a Marvel movie? Or something good like that? Those superhero costumes they make are terrific aren’t they? Real tight and colourful, you know what I mean? Real tight.”
Talbot’s eyes drifted back to Reggie for a couple of seconds. Reggie saw it and squirmed. The man was daring him to do something about it.
“Let’s go Terri,” Reggie said.
Fortunately Terri’s cool veneer was flawless.
“No superhero movies I’m afraid Mike,” she said. “Got a few things coming out though. A TV show. A teleplay, that sort of thing.”
Talbot’s face soured.
“That’s alright,” he said. “You know why it’s alright? Because you’re the best damn actress I ever saw Terri. Ever. And I mean that. It’s a real privilege living next door to someone like you.”
“Let’s go,” Reggie repeated, opening up the driver’s door. He hit the roof of the car.
“Fern, get in will you?”
Fern hovered beside the SUV, scowling at Talbot with a masterful display of loathing. Only a teenage girl could pull that sort of look off.
“When’s the baby due fatso?” she mumbled.
Talbot touched his hear. “What was that sweetie?” he asked, leaning forward. “Didn’t quite catch that.”
Fern smiled and waved at the man. “I said have a nice day Mr Talbot.”
She disappeared into the backseat.
“Call me Mike,” Talbot said, waving after her. Reggie saw that same hungriness in the man’s eyes as he gawped at Fern.
“Don’t let us keep you out in the cold Mike,” Terri said. She climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the car door shut.
“Get us out of here,” she said, looking at Reggie with a painful grin. “Or I’m going to kill him.”
“With pleasure,” Reggie said.
As Reggie backed the car out of the driveway, Talbot stood at the door watching them go with a gormless expression on his face. He slid the jumbo X-15 headphones over his ears and his eyes lit up as if he’d plugged back into heaven itself. Slowly, he glided back through the doorway.
Reggie put his foot down on the pedal, tearing down Mulberry Street before taking a right onto the main road.
The Schedule followed them, an unwelcome shadow of noise.
“Talbot’s a dirty old creep,” Ellie said in the backseat. “I can’t stand the way he looks at me sometimes. Looks through me.”
“He’s a pervert,” Fern said. “Probably can’t get it up anymore.”
“Hey,” Terri said, twisting around in the passenger seat to face the two girls. “Let’s keep it classy, okay girls?”
Fern shrugged. “Tell that to the classless loser next door.”
Reggie stole a glance in the rearview mirror. His eldest daughter stared out of the window in silence. Ellie meanwhile, sat upright at the other end of the backseat, an open book in her lap.
There was only two years between the two girls. In terms of personality however, the gap was wider. Ellie, the youngest at fourteen, was a quiet girl with a laser-like focus on whatever grabbed her attention. She was an avid reader, always lost in a book.
Sixteen-year-old Fern, with her pink and purple streaked blonde hair, was less introverted than her sister. Sixteen was a tricky age. Teenagers rebelled and that was the way of the world. Reggie and Terri had done their best to bring both girls up according to their philosophy, steering them away from the failings of the world. No easy task. It seemed like Fern had been drifting in between these two opposing ideologies, the world and her family, for a while. It was just a phase but there had been some run-ins lately. Nothing to worry too much about. Nothing more than the usual teenage girl hang-ups.
Reggie could barely remember what it was like to be a teenager. All he recalled about being sixteen were the countless protests he’d marched alongside, protests about the emergence of the Schedule and the unhealthy influence of the noise industries. The so-called normal things, girls and parties and underage drinking, he’d pushed them to the side for more pressing concerns. Reggie had a cause that he believed in and he believed in it with all his heart and soul. In that sense he’d been more like Ellie than Fern. Laser focus. And Reggie had stuck with the student marches, even when the number of protesters had consistently dwindled year after year.
Terri leaned her elbow against the window.
“Talbot’s trying to pick a fight with you,” she said.
“Yes he is,” Reggie said as the SUV approached the slip road that would take them onto the motorway. The morning traffic cruised at a steady pace. On both sides of the street, a vast array of identical-looking shops and eateries were carved into the face of mono-block buildings. Pedestrians hurried back
and forth, their arms weighed down with shopping bags. Most people, old and young and in between, had jumbo-sized headphones over their ears. Big was back in style. Those without headphones listened to the Schedule as the Political Hour ended and the celebrity gossip show, which was a popular segment, began.
“Talbot wants me out of the picture so he can have you all to himself,” Reggie said. “You’re his actress goddess and he’s your number one fan. Didn’t you know that?”
Terri laughed. “He’s my Annie Wilkes?”
“Exactly,” Reggie said. “He’s your Annie Wilkes.” He put on Talbot’s voice, a remarkably precise imitation: “Any new shows coming out Terri? Gee I’d really love to see you dressed in a cockadoodie superhero outfit Terri!”
Terri doubled over in hysterics. Fern joined in, laughing from the backseat.
“Who’s Annie Wilkes?” Ellie said.
“Doesn’t matter sweetheart,” Reggie said, looking at his youngest daughter in the mirror. Ellie’s confused face stared back at her. “If you ever get around to reading Misery by Stephen King you’ll understand.”