Survival

by Chris Wright

  “How did they do that? How did they know how to copy our movements as we did it? Why were they wearing masks?” He said over and over again, hoping that they more he said it, the more some obvious answer would pop out of his questions.

  “I don't know Tom, let's just get home” Gina said walking faster.

  They were both freaked out by the whole event, part of Tom wanting to turn back and knock some features into their weird featureless faces, the other half afraid of who they were. It was by far the weirdest thing he had experienced in his life. They continued on home as quick as they could and a mile further on were able to relax a bit more and try not to dwell on what happened too much. Thankfully the beautiful surroundings helped them try and forget the odd event. But something still wasn't sitting right with Tom, and neither was it with Gina. She hadn't told him that her odd feeling had come back as they passed fellow walkers going in the opposite direction. She started seeing them move robotically again, but kept trying to shake it off, her mind must have just been messed up from the strange earlier events. The panic hadn't fully subsided she thought. Although they were walking faster on the way back it seemed to be taking longer, probably because their thought patterns were whizzing around their brains frantically analysing the strange masked people. Tom stopped dead in his tracks and had a worried look in his eyes.

  “What's wrong?” Gina asked seeing the worried look.

  “I just saw another one of those figures I saw at the edge of the park, over there near the trees. They were there one minute and gone the next”

  “Like that one I couldn't see?” Gina replied, to which he nodded.

  Tom carried on, looking more worried than Gina liked. She convinced him it's all okay, they were probably both tired, that's all it is. They carried on home, Tom still saying that he felt like someone was watching them, every now and then swearing blind that he could see another one of the figures standing motionless. This still concerned Gina as she couldn't see anything, she could only see the strange robotic quality of anyone they passed and said hello to. When asked to describe the figures, he said they resembled something like a gargoyle or gnome, but thin and twice the height, with flashes of what looked like blue veins. This day was getting very strange, the sooner they got back home the better, Gina felt. It took them another twenty minutes to get home, Tom still being plagued by strange gangly gargoyle-esque figures, Gina trying to ignore the mechanically moving people. This was all in their heads, they had whipped each other up into a frenzy. Gina put her keys in the front door and unlocked it. With a deep breath and an immense relief, they were both happy to be home. They went straight into the kitchen to pour themselves a glass of mineral water from the fridge and then began to put on a pot of coffee.

  “That was so weird Tom”

  “Tell me about it” He said still confused, angry, and partly scared by the whole ordeal.

  Brandon’s House

  It took Danny a while to convince Brandon of the previous day's events. It took Danny relaying what Brandon had been doing with his research to seal the deal, as he told him things he shouldn't have known. They had a few conversations that were practically identical to Danny, but all new and revealing to Brandon. They went over their theories again, but had to try and revise them in the wake of Brandon's memory being wiped and a second Saturday presenting itself to Danny. Their latest theory still revolved around Shadow people. Their best guess was that they weren't helping them as such, they were attached in part to the phenomena that entered their reality in that bar and tried to eat away at the fabric of their dimension. What was this creature? And where did it come from?

  They had numerous ideas about that, all sounding as fanciful as the next one. They decided that the shadow people must be leaking out of this same dimension, perhaps not assisting the formless-all-formed demon thing, but being pulled with it into their world, so they could be a symptom of the other creature's presence. If they see the shadow figures, they know the other creature could be close or is going to be jumping into their reality very soon. All they needed to figure out was how you could destroy this creature, or at least drive it back to where it came from. They had the signs for when it was going to appear, they just needed to discover how to make it disappear. They talked about this for a few hours over numerous cups of coffee, the caffeine spurring on their crazy theories, advancing them to the preposterous one they had finally settled on. Part of them deep inside laughed at the whole thing and questioned whether they were really discussing all this. They were taking at face value the existence of shadow beings, a monster that parachuted into their dimension and back out with victim’s aplenty, missing time, missing people, and a new day of the week being pushed in between Saturday and Sunday, from who knew where. They seemed like they were normal thoughts to them at this stage, but even so they decided to keep this to themselves.

  They wanted to make sure their other friends were okay and were going to phone them, but when Danny tried to find contact numbers for Mike, Jarrah, James, Emma, and Samir, their numbers were mysteriously missing from his phone. Brandon claimed he had never met any of them of course, which by now wasn't something Danny was surprised by. Brandon picked up his phone to look through his contacts too. Danny continued to flick through his phone and found Gina's number and dialled, the fact her number was still there was a positive sign, and the fact that it started to ring was too.

  Chapter Five – Reality Bites

  Gina’s Apartment

  Gina and Tom sat in the lounge. They switched the television on, hoping to wipe the morning’s events away with some trashy day time TV, there was bound to be something to melt their brain cells on there. They were still unnerved by what had happened but decided the best thing was to just ignore it and push it back to the recesses of their mind. Gina's mobile started to ring and she saw it was Danny.

  “Hi Danny”

  “Hi Gina, how are you?”

  “Oh, don't ask, it's been a stressful morning. How are you?” She asked back.

  “I've been better to be honest, there's a lot going on. Are you free later for me and Brandon to pop round?”

  “You and Brandon? Yeah, we're going to be in all day now. What's so important?”

  Danny paused a moment, he knew what he had planned to say sounded completely nuts. Relaying it over the phone would probably not be the best idea, so he just told her that it was best to speak in person. They agreed to visit them a little later that afternoon, and they said their goodbyes. Just as Gina was saying goodbye when the home telephone rang again and Tom got up to answer it. He picked it up to be confronted by the same odd static sound Gina had heard that morning. It also reminded him of the strange sound emitted by the faceless woman. Suddenly, the static sound seemed to grab him and not let go. He tried to resist it but it seemed to be pumping thoughts and visions into his brain, as if it was throwing instructions at him that he couldn't understand. He threw the telephone down, which got Gina's attention.

  “Tom?”

  He had a strange look in his eyes, one Gina had never seen before, and she promptly got up to see if he was okay. He looked around him anxiously, his eyes darting from side to side in a mechanical fashion, his movements almost machine-like.

  “Tom, what's wrong?”

  He continued looking from side to side, at one wall, then the ceiling, then behind Gina. He turned around and started walking towards the front door. There was something strange about how he walked. He seemed to be walking like a tin man, his fluid normal movements replaced with jolting unnatural motions. Gina's dropped in horror as she realised that he too looked robotic. She called after him again but he never responded, he just opened the front door and started to walk. He hurried into a jog before trying to go into a full sprint, but due to his robotic movements was unable to, instead wobbling and jostling side to side like his joints were made of metal. Gina began to run after him, worried he was going to get run down in his haste to get away, all the while calling his name. Sud
denly Tom stopped and shook from side to side and began to start emitting a sound, a crackling static sound that snapped harshly in Gina's ears. What was this? Tom was shaking more and more violently. Gina couldn't get any closer, as with each step the static sound got more deafening, like it was trying to break free from Tom's robotic torso and grab Gina. With an ever more savage shudder Tom's body seemed to break up and dissolve into frequencies of sound. Gina jumped back in fright as the frequency formally known as Tom rippled and gave off high-pitched crackling pulses that seemed to be hitting Gina in her face. She let out an almighty scream as the freaky frequency fluttered out of sight into a puncture in reality a short distance away.

  Still screaming, having no idea what was happening and with no processing power in her brain to comprehend any of this, she darted back towards the house and slammed the door shut behind her. She took a quick glance out of the window and could see no sign of Tom or the punctured reality. She took panicked breaths, almost hyper-ventilating. She had to call the police, tell someone what happened to Tom, but how could she explain it? She couldn't explain it, but she had to do something. She ran to the telephone that Tom had thrown on the floor and tried calling the police, but the phone just crackled again. Was there still a problem on the line? Why did it have to be now? She tried again and again, the static crackle continuing. She threw the phone down and ran to her mobile, automatically dialling the emergency number. There was no ring tone, but there was still some kind of static, although very faint in the background. What was going on? She was getting ever more disorientated, she had no frame of reference for any of these events. She flicked through her contacts and dialled the first name her thumb landed on, Mariam. It rang, thank god she thought. Mariam appeared on the other end, sounding relaxed like she always did.

  “Mariam, you've got to help, Tom's disappeared, he turned into some kind of sound form and was then taken away. I know it sounds crazy but please, can you call the cops? I can't get through”

  Mariam started to answer her on the other end but Gina couldn't quite catch what she was saying, it was if Mariam's voice was turning into static. It was like the static was talking to her, taking Mariam's words and crackling them back at Gina. The static voice got louder and the noise began to thud inside Gina's brain, as if it was popping brain cells left, right and centre like bubble wrap. It hurt so much that Gina started to cry out desperately, she hoped Mariam could still hear her. The static voice started to sound more fearsome, it sounded like it was moving out of the telephone signal and into Gina. She screamed more, trying to drop her phone but the static reached through the receiver with flickering blue pulsing veins and grabbed her. She tried to pull away, but every pull in the opposite direction seemed to drag her back to her phone. The blue tentacles started to spin, enveloping her, moulding themselves to her. Gina was now unable to scream. Her lungs were out of air and the static was vibrating her cells, squeezing her tighter and tighter until she was pulled sideways. Then she was flattened out into an endless sliver of static-emitting blue pulses and was sucked from her room into her mobile phone, which had transformed itself into a vacuum in space. The vacuum quickly vanished, and the phone dropped to the floor. The room was now empty, with just the TV still on. Then the room rippled, as if someone had changed the channel on reality.

  Mariam and Mateo’s House

  Mariam was sat on the couch with her laptop, flicking through articles about the latest research in genetics. Advances were made every week, so it was important to keep on top of things. Mateo was in his study, reading and researching into new advanced coding methods, it was all very complex, even for him. He could understand it after a couple of re-reads, but it took some doing. This was real cutting edge, and it excited him to be involved in how it was evolving. The benefits for mankind were going to be astonishing one day. Mariam's mobile rang and she picked it up without looking who it was, the article taking up ninety percent of her attention.

  “Hey Mariam, its Brandon”

  “Oh, hi Brandon, what's up?” Mariam asked, “Do you want to speak to Mat?”

  Mariam didn't know Brandon too well, but he and Mateo hung out a lot, so presumed he'd be wanting to arrange a get together.

  “Well either of you really. Is it ok if we come to yours later on? Will you be in?”

  “We?”

  “Oh sorry, yeah, me and Dan” He replied quickly.

  “Yeah sure, we're going to the cinema this afternoon, but we'll be around until about four pm if that's any good?”

  Brandon checked his watch, four was a few hours away yet, so that gave them plenty of time.

  “Okay, sounds good, see you soon” He said putting the phone down quickly.

  She placed her laptop on the couch next to her and got up to find Mateo. This seemed a bit out of the blue, Brandon and Danny had never both been round together. They all knew each other, but they normally met at Gina's place.

  “Hey Hon” She said poking her head around the door, “Brandon and Dan are going to come around a bit later on before we go out, not sure when, so you might want to put something decent on”.

  Mateo was sitting there in a long vest top and his underwear. He didn't get dressed properly at the weekend, unless they were expecting company, and if someone knocked at the door unexpectedly, he let Mariam answer. The fact both of them wanted to come around was quite unusual, but they hadn't seen them for a while, so they probably just wanted to catch up.

  “When did we last see either of them? I can't quite remember” He asked Mariam.

  Mariam poked her head back round the door.

  “I'm not sure actually, seems like ages ago, it must have been round Gina's. Was it your birthday maybe?”

  “Umm, possibly” Mateo replied, “I'll get dressed in a minute”.

  Mariam walked back into the lounge and sat back down on the couch. It would be nice to see both Brandon and Danny. Mariam and Mateo didn't get out that often to see their friends any more, they were always too busy working, or eating out catching the latest movie. She really couldn't remember when she had last seen either of them, which was very weird, she normally had a great memory. She didn't dwell on it for too long and sat back down with her laptop to continue scanning the articles that were of interest. She heard Mateo banging around in the bedroom, putting some clothes on. He could never be quiet, she always knew where he was in the house. Just as she was starting to concentrate again her mobile rang. Was it Brandon again? She looked down and this time she saw it was Gina. Gina as well? Mariam felt popular all of a sudden. She accepted the call and put her ear next to the receiver.

  “Hi Gi-” She was cut off by a scratching sound. She could just make out Gina's voice distantly. The line didn't seem to be very good, there was some kind of interference, “I can't hear you Gina, can you try and speak up? The signal is terrible”.

  “.... help, Tom's disa.....some kind of …....form..... taken” The voice at the other end of the phone said.

  What was she talking about? Her words were breaking up and it was hard to understand what she was saying.

  “Gina, the line is bad, can I try calling you back?”

  “....sounds crazy.....please” Gina shouted down the phone.

  But something was odd, her voice was changing, morphing into some synthetic tone. Sharp static words were being spat out like they weren't wanted, starting to distort.

  “Call the cops?..... get through” Gina said.

  She wasn't so sure that this was Gina's voice at all, it had altered beyond all recognition. It had twisted into a fiendishly sounding analogue grunt. She then heard this analogue grunt rise into a hellish scream, pulses of static wildly flailing out of her earpiece, almost deafening. Mariam pulled the phone away from her ear straight away wondering what was happening. She looked at her mobile as it started to flash. What was wrong with this thing? Was the battery going to explode? She quickly placed it on the glass coffee table in front of her, put her laptop to the side and stood up frightened,
expecting the phone to burst into flames any second. The phone vibrated, the flashes taking on a blue hue, before tentacle-like fibres sprung out of it in all directions. Mariam stood there startled, suddenly feeling complete panic which turned into a reflexive squeal. Mateo realised something was wrong and darted towards the lounge as quick as he could.

  The blue pulses from the phone raced up each tentacle structure, all the while multiplying, filling the room around Mariam. The walls were covered in them, pulsing and flashing in a web like structure. The floor beneath her was undulating, appearing to sway with the same pulses. The room began to cave in, to condense into an unfathomable mesh of blue pulsing veins with Mariam at the centre. She looked across to the hallway and decided to make a dash for it, at the same time screaming to Mateo to get out of the house. This all happened so quickly that Mateo hadn't quite reached the lounge, but was desperately running down the back corridor. In the distance he saw an unexpected sight, the unfathomable blue radiating from their lounge.

  Mariam reached the hallway. As she looked behind her, she saw the incomprehensible flashes of tentacles flutter some kind of expression into itself. She was now staring at some kind of beast made of electro-static pulses, each pulse a strand of its body, somehow forever changing. That gave her the final impetus to sprint for the front door, yelling Mateo again. She was completely terrified, and terrified for Mateo as much as herself. What was this thing? What was happening? She barely had time to let those questions form in her mind before she had reached the front door, and with a courageous effort grabbed the handle which was trying to repel her from it. She could see in the corners of eyes that the blue pulsing veins had reached the hallway. They were millimetres from her, even finer strands flickering in the space between her and them, teasing at her hair. She could make out figures too, shadowy and transient, one after the other, oscillating with the same rhythm as the pulses.

  Mateo reached the lounge, seeing the impossible sight before him, confusion the like of which he had never encountered speeding round his brain. He saw Mariam in the doorway, poised to open it, as the tangled web of flashing unimaginable veins slowly started rippling around her in an intelligent way, as if guided by something. Mariam pulled the door open with all her might and jumped through. She passed through the entrance and floated in empty space. Where the path leading up to the front door should have been was an eternal endless stretch of stars and space, which she glided through, each moment causing more confusion than the last. Mateo watched it all happen in slow motion. As the door was yanked free from its magnetic hold, a terrific rush of static air seemed to flow back to the lounge. This was accompanied by a feeling of complete terror, as a loud artificial sounding boom echoed back to him, followed closely by a radiating beastly growl. He watched helplessly as Mariam leapt through the door and floated there suspended in mid-air, behind her filled with an infinite expanse of stars. Mateo was completely beside himself, none of this could be happening.