X: A Collection of Horror

by Saunders, Christian

  Stephen suspected that at the time she was suffering from an inferiority complex of some kind, or a desire to feel wanted. That, she most certainly was.

  The situation culminated one afternoon in an almighty row, and Stephen always remembered the last hurtful words he said to her; “When your heart's been broken into a million pieces and your lady bits are crawling with diseases, don't come crying to me!”

  But that was exactly what she did.

  They hadn't spoken for five years or more when, one wet and windy Tuesday afternoon, Yaz turned up on his doorstep unannounced. She had argued with her latest boyfriend and was desperate for somewhere to spend a few hours. But that wasn't why she was almost hysterical with grief. The dreaded test results had came back.

  She was positive.

  HIV.

  Every young person’s nightmare. A slow-acting, crippling parasite of a virus that eventually reduced the victim to a pathetic wretch capable only of praying for merciful release, which threatened to bring society crashing down around our ears. A disease spread during the primal act of lovemaking, one of mankind's principal urges. Oh, the irony.

  When she told him, Stephen wept for the first time in living memory.

  He had developed his own theory about HIV and AIDS. He had an idea that it was a man-made, government endorsed virus designed primarily to keep the population level down, which had been wilfully induced into certain sections of the general public. The undesirables, like the ethnic minorities and homosexuals to begin with. But then it had taken hold, and spread like wildfire.

  There were drugs on the market to control it, of course. Expensive drugs that only prolonged the suffering and delayed the inevitable, while the fat cats in charge of the pharmaceutical companies got rich through despair. The grand plan probably included a miracle cure which would be discovered as soon as the problem became too large and available at a price.

  Surely though, it would arrive too late to save Yaz.

  Some people claimed the rich and powerful had probably already been inoculated against it, knowingly or otherwise, leaving the working classes to play a souped-up version of Russian roulette every time they had unprotected sex.

  He had always found conspiracy theories most interesting. The internet was alive with them.

  Whenever a new relationship loomed, everyone with the faintest sense of responsibility would be haunted by that burrowing maggot of doubt.

  Could this be the one that infects me? Am I the next pitiful victim to be taken gently by the hand and led straight from the bedroom to the slaughter house?

  When she told him of her condition that afternoon, Stephen and Yaz embraced. Then they kissed. All Stephen's buried feelings came raging back to the surface, and he was suddenly faced with a revelation - he could no longer blame adolescent lust for his devotion to her. He was older now. Old enough to know better. And he still wanted her. At that moment he wanted her more than anything else in the world, and that could only mean one thing. Love. Or some twisted, bastardised version of it.

  He knew she could never love him back. She probably didn't even fancy him, she was just dealing with the trauma the only way she knew how. By giving herself away, the way she always had.

  She requested, then pleaded, that Stephen use a condom. He declined, then refused. Some would call it stupidity. Others would call it potential suicide. But Stephen knew exactly what he was doing.

  The Sex Pistols were right, there was no future.

  No future other than the synthetic, two-dimensional existence he had carved out for himself. An life devoid of emotion, empty of love and worse still, totally missing any form of fulfilling sexual gratification. It had to change, whatever the cost.

  When they had finished, Yaz made her excuses and left, no doubt straight into the arms of another, but Stephen was content. He didn't ask her to stay. It had been a welcome interlude from the virtual reality monotony to which he had become accustomed. And that was all. He had just wanted to feel... something.

  Something real.

  But the experience was not what he had hoped it would be. The love they made was awkward, false and passionless. They tried, but it lacked even the slightest animalistic urge.

  Stephen's job sometimes made him privy to certain sensitive and top secret information. As luck would have it, only a few months after Yaz's visit he had carried out a top secret assignment for the Ministry Of Defence and was granted, for a short time, unlimited security clearance. He was permitted to stroll at his leisure through the massed ranks of highly classified computerised files summarizing the entire recorded history of the human race.

  It made for shocking reading.

  After a little digging in the right places he discovered he was right about the AIDS virus. Or at least, partially so. It was indeed a creation of man. But that was nothing compared to the whole picture.

  The awful truth was difficult even for him to comprehend. There were so many plots and sub-plots, twists and turns, that Stephen became overawed by the sheer vastness of it. He used all his sanctioned time to wander through countless encrypted files, secret documents and government charts. Some of it merely confirmed his suspicions, some of it took him by surprise, and some of it horrified him to the core.

  For decades, all the world's major governments have been experimenting with the hidden powers of the mind... the prophet Nostradamus had mastered the art centuries before and used it to foresee the destruction of our planet... When THEY return. The beings from other worlds. The ancient Gods. The upper echelons of the governments of the world all knew the truth, but kept it from the public for fear of causing a global panic. To acknowledge alien life would change everything. Every mainstream religion would take a hit, and the entire belief system of the human race would be spun on its axis.

  The evidence was undeniable. It was there in black and white - or a shimmering bluish-green. The more he delved, the more information he extracted, the lower his heart sank. Human history was positively riddled with manipulation and tainted with the stench of corruption. The futility of it all was crushing.

  Was the destiny of mankind really mapped out in the stars?

  YES DEAR...

  The words still blinked on the computer screen. The client had wanted a password that was easy to remember, dismissive yet significant. It was ironic really that the two words should bring to mind a timid, elderly gentleman agreeing to make a cup of tea for his over-bearing spouse or something when they were, in fact, the key with which to unleash the Age of Terror.

  It was a simple command-plus-acronym format.

  Yes... Destroy Everything, All Resistance.

  A fitting moniker for the largest and most advanced guided weapon system in the world. All his client had to do was key in the magic combination of letters and hit return, rather than a comically oversized flashing red button.

  When in motion, the system could not be de-activated. Within seconds, every major super-power in the world would flex their military muscles and retaliate using their own awesome array of gloriously expensive fire power. Such a glut of released energy would surely mean the end of the world as we knew it. Millions upon millions of people would at last meet their makers, and finally get to know the answer to all the question that had plagued mankind since its conception.

  What happens when we die?

  Except, of course, none of them would meet God.

  Not a single soul would be allowed through heaven's golden gate, and not one will be cast down below. Because it's all a lie.

  There is no God.

  Religion in all its guises, and every bastard derivative of it, is nothing more than a worldwide, age-old lie. It, like everything else, has evolved so far from it's origins that every trace of it's original meaning has been twisted and distorted beyond all recognition by the ravaging, merciless winds of time.

  Religion had morphed into little more than a control mechanism.

  Don't do that! God wouldn't like it!

  How could
mankind be so gullible and so self-important as to actually take any form of modern religion seriously? All the opposing factions each doggedly following their chosen route were reminiscent of a mythical spider web, branching out from the nucleus of creation and into whatever differing views the individual religion approved of.

  The only true religion is the ancient one. Some of it is written in the bible, but is taken completely out of context.

  Stephen shuddered as once more he prepared himself to face the awful, yet painfully obvious truth. The truth that now dominated not only his every waking thought, but also his dreams.

  Thousands of years ago, when men were little more than primates, the earth was invaded by a highly advanced alien race. They were not hostile, but friendly, and stayed for centuries, teaching us many things - some of the most important of which we have since forgotten. They also modified our gene structure to make our species increasingly more sophisticated and intelligent. Apparently they were, or still are, in the habit of interference.

  Seeing this powerful, all-knowing alien race as superior beings, mankind's ancient ancestors looked to the alien beings for guidance and soon started to revere them. This started the ball rolling. They were the first, and only true Gods.

  When their work among us was done, the alien race simply left. Quietly, and with the minimum of fuss. They left some structures and artefacts for us to ponder, but only later did we grow intelligent enough to make any records of their visit. By that time, the encounters were heavily romanticized distant memories handed down through countless generations via word-of-mouth. Hence, the abstract and often confusing nature of the bible. The only true account of our ancient history, believed to have been left by the aliens themselves, is concealed in a secret chamber beneath the Great Pyramid of Egypt. It still lies there today, assuming it can be deciphered.

  Have you had enough yet? Is your mind swimming?

  But wait, that's not all.

  Under the principal law of nature, there must be a reason for everything or else it would not exist. So why did the alien race take such an interest in us?

  The answer is profound, yet terrifyingly simple.

  They did not help us out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they? We were a potential future threat to their existence if we evolved far enough.

  No, they just wanted to play with us. They wanted test subjects, and a breeding ground for diseases and biological threats which were a big concern to them. In their world, they must constantly strive to find new ways of combating the multitude of ever-mutating viruses that contaminate the reaches of outer space. They also carried out mass psychological and genetic experiments on a frightening scale, which might go some way to explaining the number of mysterious disappearances that litter history.

  The final straw, the knockout punch, is that the aliens never left us completely.

  Instead, they chose to study and scrutinise us from a distance, housed in the relative safety of immense structures buried deep in space, just beyond our solar system. An easily commutable distance for them. Occasionally, they would return to earth to carry out yet more experiments or deliver new instructions to their earth-dwelling allies, of which there are many. But they were very rarely seen, benefiting greatly from the smoke-screen of UFO related disinformation fed to us by governments and greedily consumed by the ignorant public. One of the first rules of media dictates that the truth can easily be buried in plain sight, if you shovel enough shit on top of it.

  It was they who first introduced the AIDS virus to our planet, apparently to enable them to study the effect of internal conflict in the psyche - the innate need to reproduce versus the desire for self-preservation. Which would prevail? This horrendous global experiment was performed under the supervision of the NWO, the New World Order, which was set up by the alien race before they retreated into the sky and included amongst their numbers representatives of every major power in the world. The NWO have operatives in every conceivable position of power, in every country and in every walk of life. It is easily able to weed out and deal with potential trouble-makers. The enemy within. And the enemy all around.

  The human race has become far too inquisitive for the so-called God's liking, and is teetering on the brink of a colossal revelation. Before long, something will have to be done to set us back a few centuries. A new dark age with non-existent communication links would be ideal. Something similar to what would surely rise from the smouldering ashes of an all-out nuclear war...

  So, the awful truth is that we have no future.

  We are mere pawns in a cosmic game of trickery. We put our faith in fabricated Gods and puppet leaders who conspire amongst themselves to wipe us all out. All that has ever been, all that is, and all that will ever be is meaningless, contrived and sterile. The things we think are so important; love, happiness, work, life, death...

  None of it really matters.

  It's all just manufactured emotion based on our primitive survival instincts, a hangover from our club-wielding Neanderthal days. The only part of us that is truly our own.

  Stephen thought long and hard, considering his options. At first, it seemed like he had so many - go public and tell the world what he knew, forget all about it and hope it goes away, try and muscle his way into some powerful global corporation and use his influence fight from the inside, or use his knowledge for the purposes of bribery. He could even use the YES DEAR software he designed to trigger a World War of his own, if he so wished.

  But what was the point?

  And who was he to decide the fate of others?

  The sense of responsibility was crushing.

  His own fate, however, had already been decided thanks to the brief interlude with Yaz. It was only a matter of time before his insignificant, worthless life was ruthlessly snuffed out. And even that could be a blessing. Who wanted to exist in this horribly twisted world?

  It was as if a veil had been removed from his eyes. He only had one real option. Better a quick death than a slow, painful one...

  He reached into a hidden draw in his desk and removed the handgun he had acquired for his protection some time ago. It was already loaded. He switched off the safety catch, and put the cold steel barrel in his mouth.

  As he pulled the trigger, he thought about history.

  Hundreds of miles away, the man in the black suit put down the telephone receiver and turned to face his colleague.

  “Mission accomplished. The target blew his brains out thirty minutes ago.”

  “Good. What do you think finally tipped him over the edge?”

  “Who knows? We laid it on pretty thick.”

  “Do you think he believed all that stuff? All the documents we mocked up and filled that website with?”

  “It doesn't matter. It just goes to prove my point, if you mess with a man's mind enough, he'll snap in the end. And more often than not, he'll take his own life and save us the trouble. If he hadn't, he'd probably be in a padded cell by now, babbling some nonsense about aliens, a New World Order, AIDS and conspiracies. Every inch the raving paranoid schizophrenic, his promising career in tatters. He would have been finished one way or the other.”

  “Bringing the girl in was a master-stroke, though.”

  “I agree. We're just lucky that she could be bought so easily. The things some people will say and do for money. It's a shame really. That man could have been brilliant.”

  “That man was brilliant, there are no two ways about it. The thing is, we couldn't have him being brilliant for the opposition, could we? You'd better contact company HQ and let them know that the plan worked...”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Mr. C

  Mr. C has a lot of money – more than most. Hand-in-hand with money comes an abundance of power and popularity. Mr. C is in his mid-twenties. Tall, well-built and good-looking. He oozes charm, is the envy of his peers, and has scores of wanton females falling at his feet.

  He carries both a smart phone and a tablet, owns a plush
three-bed apartment fitted with every conceivable mod-con and boy's toy, and wears nothing but the best designer labels and most expensive jewellery. He drives a BMW. Second-hand and six years old, but a Beamer all the same. It's good for the image.

  Everywhere he goes, Mr. C demands respect and has the sophisticated demeanour of a successful, upwardly-mobile young executive. To all intents and purposes, he is sorted. Yet every other Wednesday morning, he cashes his unemployment benefit cheque at the local post office.

  The truth is he has no job, nor any need of one. Because Mr .C is just your average run-of-the-mill petty drug dealer.

  In the same pocket as his smart phone, loaded with coded lists of suppliers, contacts and customers, there are two polythene zip-lock bags. One containing ecstasy in tablet form, and the other containing pre-cut and weighed wraps of cocaine. He has long since abandoned dealing weed, which by comparison was high-turnover and low-profit, and turned to the designer drugs. He cleared several hundred pounds a day, more on weekends and holidays, and his outgoings were minimal. The social paid for his flat.

  I live in a small town with a population of no more than two thousand. In the past three years there have been three drug-related deaths, two suicides and two murders. I knew all the victims. And the victim's families. Kids as young as ten save up their pocket money to buy a lump of hash on the weekend, at my old comprehensive school the pupils are regularly searched by police for weapons and drugs.

  On my way home from work the other week, I quite literally stumbled across a teenage boy curled up in the foetal position in the gutter. He was so wasted he couldn't talk, never mind stand up unaided. He probably wouldn't thank me for it, but I think I did him a personal favour by calling the Boys in Blue.

  The drug situation in South Wales is escalating with frightening pace. Since the coal pits closed in the eighties, most of the country has spiralled into poverty and despair. There are very few well-paying jobs. Ambition is dead. And it's not only us. There are people like Mr. C in every town and city in the UK, not just the deprived areas the middle classes look down their noses at.