Sunspots and Forever Dark Omnibus

by Gary Martin

  I run as fast as I can, shouting Ez's name, but the air ambulances that are always within a minute or two of any accident get there just before I do. I'm guessing Tommy must have put a call in. A medic comes running up to me.

  “What happened, sir?” he asks me as I get to the scene.

  “She was scared … she was running …” I'm still too shell-shocked to put together a sentence. The other two medics already have Ez out of the wreckage and on to a stretcher. I stare at her, she's not moving but she doesn't look damaged. Just a little blood coming out of her nose and left ear.

  “Is she …”

  “No, she'll be okay. We just need to get her to the hospital, and fast. Sir, is there anything more you can tell me about her condition?” I stare at the medic blankly and he starts to walk back to the ambulance.

  “Tell him about the drugs she's taken, John,” Terrell shouts through my earpiece.

  “Drugs,” I blurt out. The medic turns.

  “What sort?”

  “Um … Emergency Stops, spiders and vodka. A lot.” He nods and runs into the back of the ambulance. The rear doors raise and it takes off, quickly leaving me alone and in silence.

  31

  The four of us are sitting in the hospital waiting room. Jacob, Terrell and Tommy must be on a come down by now, they’re all looking pale and clammy in the harsh fluorescent lights, but they don't complain about it. It's been three hours since the accident, and a massive part of me wants to lay the blame right at Tommy's feet. But I can't. He saved my life. It was my own fault for not looking where I was going. It just kick-started a chain of events that spiralled out of control. I look around the room. These are my best friends. I’m lucky to have them. Who else would have gone through that to help a friend in need? I'm not even sure I would. I am a lucky man.

  “Thank you,” I say. “You guys don't have to stay though. You can go home, it's really late.”

  “No worries, John, we're with you until the end,” Jacob says and smiles. The waiting room door opens and a doctor comes in.

  “John Farrow?” he asks, and I stand up.

  “Come with me please.” I follow him out into the corridor.

  “How is she?” I ask sheepishly.

  “She was very, very lucky. The amount of drugs in her system, together with the stress, caused her to have a cardiac incident, and we believe that's the reason she crashed. We have fixed that. Unfortunately, the sudden impact of the crash, and the insignificant safety features in that little vehicle of hers has fractured her skull. She's also got a swelling on her brain, so we're going to have to keep her in a coma until it goes down.”

  That all sounds pretty awful.

  “But the good news is that the baby is fine.”

  At least there is some good news …

  “Wait, what are you talking about?” I ask, feeling flustered.

  “The baby is going to be fine. According to her charts she's about three months pregnant.”

  “Her charts? She’s been in about this? Three months …?”

  “Yes she has, and as I said, everything is fine in that respect.” The doctor continues talking, but I can no longer hear him. I don't know what to do. My brain feels like it's going to explode with this information. She's known all this time. The conversation we had by the river before Jupiter Rising was just testing the water. She already knew that I was going to be a stay at home dad, that's why she wasn't pushing for me to get another job. She was letting me get it all out of my system before she finally told me the truth. Would I have known about it by now if her boss hadn't gone missing? Should I have guessed? I don't know. But since then she's been treating her body like a chemical waste facility. She knew all of this and still kept filling herself with drugs and alcohol. I feel betrayed. She’s betrayed our unborn child. I fucking hate her for this. Everything that I thought I knew is wrong. I can't stay here any longer. I have to get away. I turn from the doctor and walk out of the hospital. Before I know it, I'm driving Bruce towards the Sunspots loading yard and the shuttle bay that will take me back to Sunspot 2. Part of me knows it’s a terrible decision that I’ll probably regret, but in the red mist of anger I can’t stop myself.

  32

  My eyes begin to slowly open, and the lights above me are blurry and blinding. My head is throbbing and I try to move my hand in front of my face to block out the light, but I can't move my arm. I can't move either of them, they seem to be tied up behind me. My feet are tied too. I open and close my eyes quickly to try and get my vision back and realise I'm sitting tied to a chair next to one of the thin ends of the pool table in the rec deck. Robert is sitting to my left on one of the long sides; he's slumped and still unconscious. Kerry is opposite him on the other side, also unconscious. Mark is sat opposite me on the far end, wide-eyed and silent.

  “What's going on?” I ask.

  “I don't know. The lights were red. They then went back to normal. I went to find Robert, but something got me. I woke up here about ten minutes ago and you were all here too. We’re all going to die, John.”

  I try and pull my hands out of the rope, but they're not moving. I'm stuck.

  “Can you get free?” I ask.

  “No, been trying since I woke up. They won't budge.”

  Kerry starts to stir, and I call her name quietly a few times. Her eyes open wide and her head moves up sharply. She tries to move her arms without success.

  “What the fuck is happening?!” she shouts, looking at me.

  “I don't know,” I say. “But we're completely screwed.”

  Kerry looks at Mark.

  “I'm so sorry about earlier,” he says to her. “I was completely out of order.” He looks like he really means it.

  “Don't worry about it, you daft bastard. They say make-up sex is better than standard sex anyway.” He smiles, but his face then drops as I guess he remembers where we are.

  Kerry looks at Robert who's still slumped over.

  “Oi, wake up, you fat fuck,” she shouts, and he wakes up with a jolt. He then proceeds to do the same thing the rest of us have done and tries to pull his hands free of the rope.

  “What the …?” he says.

  “No good Robert. We're stuck here.” she says to him. I look from Kerry to Mark, to Robert and back to Kerry. I think it's safe to say we're all terrified.

  “Who's done this to us?” Robert asks.

  “Or what has,” I reply.

  He looks at me with what looks like confusion, anxiety and terror all at the same time. He then turns to Kerry, I guess for verification of the what.

  “What we found on the hangar. It was fucked up,” she says.

  “What did you find?” Mark asks. I let Kerry say it, it's more likely that they'll listen to her.

  “We found Tom. His neck was ripped right fucking open. In fact, his head was almost off,” she says.

  Robert looks at Mark, both have the same expression of horror on their faces.

  “That's not all. Underneath his neck was a load of translucent slime. John found the same stuff earlier when he was in the inspection tubes, and the cargo bay.”

  “Holy shit,” Robert says under his breath.

  “We’re all going to die,” Mark says again.

  “There was a wooden transport crate as well. We opened it, but John and I didn’t have any idea what it was.”

  Robert and Mark are just staring at us.

  “What killed Tom then? Did you find the rest of his shift?” Mark asks, and looks at me.

  “No, we didn't. I don't know what's happened to them. I get the feeling we won't have to wait very long to find out,” I reply.

  “Are we all on the same page here?” Robert asks.

  “Are we all thinking that something extra-terrestrial may have done this?”

  “Yes, we're all thinking fucking aliens. As ridiculous as that sounds,” Kerry says.

  No one says anything for a while, and we all continue to try and free ourselves. I’ve been constantly str
uggling since I woke up, and my wrists are starting to burn with the effort. I start to feel a trickle of something down my hand, blood I'd imagine, so I decide to stop struggling and slump. Kerry looks at me.

  “Are you giving up?” she asks.

  “I might be. I'm not sure I see the point anymore. Mark’s right, we’re all going to die.”

  “Fucking stop it. Your head has been up your arse this whole trip, John, you've not been yourself. You may as well tell us what happened to you before this trip. What you hinted at after the fire in the engine room, but then pussied out of. Tell us why you're here when you're not supposed to be.”

  So I do. I lay myself bare. I tell them everything. There is a long silence after I've finished. It finally gets broken by Robert.

  “That's harsh, man.”

  “I know it was, but I couldn't make sense of it. My head just fogged up and I didn't think any of it through. She couldn’t deal with the stress, so she hid away from everything with drugs and drink. I just ran away. I left her alone and unprotected in a hospital bed, in a coma. I didn't even see her. Skylark could easily take her out. Her, and my unborn child. It doesn't seem real. I wouldn't have thought it was possible for me to do that. They could be dead. It's all I can think about. It just goes around and around in my head. And the more I think about it the worse I feel.”

  “And you should feel bad. I didn't think you could be that person, John. I thought you were one of the good ones. But you can't give up. There's still a good chance she's alive. You have to keep hold of that, you can't give up. Not after what we've been through today. You have to get back for her,” Kerry says, her eyes pleading with me.

  “That was my plan, in the hangar anyway. But look at us now. Look around the table at our sorry faces. We're done. We all know it. I've given up because I've got nothing left.”

  “Then you deserve your misery,” she says.

  There is a sound from the next level up. The door to someone's quarters gets slammed closed, and I hear footsteps.

  “Shhhhhh, listen,” Robert says quietly. The familiar sound of feet hitting the rungs of the ladder comes from behind him. I look to my left and see two legs emerging from the hatch above, taking one slow step at a time. We're all transfixed, but Robert is facing the cargo bay, and can't see anything.

  “What is it? What is it?” he asks quietly. But no one answers him. We just watch the figure slowly climb down. When it finally hits the deck, it turns around to face us. Kerry then looks at Robert.

  “It's wearing a suit. It's wearing a fucking suit,” she says to him.

  It is indeed wearing a suit, but also some sort of paper bag on its head with uneven eyeholes cut out. It's a man. A man wearing a homemade paper bag on his head. He walks towards us, his shiny black shoes clicking against the metal deck plates as he moves. Click … Click … Click … Click … As he gets closer I can see that the bag on his head has lines of printed text with diagrams on it. The bag itself has been badly stuck together with tape. He stops about two metres behind Robert.

  “Hello, I trust everyone's comfortable,” he says, in a smooth unfamiliar voice.

  “Who the fuck are you supposed to be, you paper-headed prick?” Kerry asks him. He points at his head.

  “This? Do you not like it? I made it myself out of an instruction manual,” Paper-headed prick says in his slightly creepy monotone. He then starts to walk around the pool table anti-clockwise. Click … Click … Click … Click … I feel the air move as he walks behind me, he then passes Kerry and runs his fingers through her pink hair. As he walks behind Mark, Mark flinches. Paper-headed prick stops behind Robert and puts his hands on his shoulders. Robert’s eyes open wide, and he looks like he may have a heart attack. He moves his head to Robert’s ear.

  “Everything was going so very smoothly. It was quickly put together, but there was no reason for it to go wrong. But he was a snooper. He snooped. He found out. I had no choice after that. No choice.” He lets go of Robert’s shoulders and continues to circle the pool table. Click … Click … Click … Click … Robert lets out a sigh of relief.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Kerry shouts. He runs his fingers through her hair again as he walks behind her.

  “There's no reason you'd understand. You were the only one here who had a chance at stopping me. But you didn't. You know too much. But so little.” Click … Click … Click … Click …

  “You're a fucking nut job mate,” she sneers.

  “Sticks and stones. I don't think you'd be the same person if you came home to find your wife and children burned alive.”

  Mark looks up.

  “Your wife and children were murdered?” he asks quietly.

  “A kidnapping gone wrong. An attempt to control me. Oh but my wife knew how to put up a good fight. They didn't expect that. In the end her ability to fight got her nowhere, of course. Just dead. Unfortunately the stupid bitch got my children killed too. And my beloved dog. I can't really blame her. I brought it all on myself by being difficult.” Click … Click … Click … Click …

  “Why did you kill Tom?” I quietly ask as he walks behind me. “And where's the rest of his shift?” He stops and puts his mouth up to my left ear.

  “John finally speaks,” he whispers, his warm breath tickles my earlobe and makes me feel queasy. He then moves away and continues his circling. Click … Click … Click … Click …

  “Everybody, John has spoken!” he shouts. “It's nice to finally meet you, John. John and I go way back. Best friends, John and I. John. John. John. You gave me the inspiration, John. I love it when we talk like this, John.”

  “You know each other?” Robert sheepishly asks. Paper-headed prick looks in his direction, and then picks up a yellow pool ball from the table. He throws it at full force towards Robert’s head. It misses by less than a centimetre. The ball bounces off the wall, and clatters to a halt on the patterned deck plates. Paper-headed prick walks over to it and picks it up.

  “I thought I'd be a better shot than that. I guess that sums up the last few weeks. I'm not great at everything.” He walks towards Robert throwing the ball from one hand to another, and I notice that he seems to have an erection.

  “What to do, what to do,” he mutters to himself and then holds the ball in the air about a metre above Robert’s head and drops it. Robert screams in agony as it bounces off his shaved tattooed skull and back on to the deck plates.

  “I don’t think that was a big enough lesson.” Paper-headed prick walks over to where the cues are racked up and grabs one with his right hand and gently slaps his left with it. He slowly moves behind Robert and stands still about a metre behind him. Robert has his eyes closed, and is slightly rocking back and forth. Paper-headed prick just stands there, not moving or saying anything. I can see that Kerry is about to say something, or probably shout something at him, when Paper-headed prick raises his finger to where his mouth should be.

  “Shhh,” he says. “The thing about a lesson, is that people take different things away from it. This is a lesson I want you to all take away the same thing from, the same meaning. No mixed messages.” He swings the pool cue and with a loud slapping noise strikes Robert across the upper back and neck with it, again and again. After about nine or ten horrifying hits, the cue snaps and Paper-headed prick drops it on the deck. Robert slumps forward.

  “No more interruptions.”

  Kerry stares at Paper-headed prick with pure hate. I've never seen her look like this. Mark has closed his eyes and is muttering something under his breath. My heart is beating fast, and I can feel the edges of fear, but mostly I'm just feeling numb.

  “You didn't answer my question,” I finally say. He looks back at me.

  “And Robert here didn't let me finish telling everyone how we came up with this together, you and me. Me and you.”

  “You’re mad. I've never met you.”

  “Of course you have, here I am.” He slowly and carefully pulls off his paper bag mask and throw
s it on the green felt of the pool table. He smiles.

  “Tim …? But you're dead. You were crushed,” I say.

  “Obviously I'm not. It was a high-risk strategy, but once you’d shut the tube’s hatch behind me, I simply moved down into one of the lower inspection tubes and waited it out. You didn't check there. I was a bit worried about the fire, and the lack of oxygen when you opened the airlock. If you hadn’t re-pressurised the engine room when you did, we wouldn’t be having this pleasant conversation now. But yes, also I am dead. You see, Tim was never alive, he was a fiction. A character I was playing. I tried to be as accurate as possible to someone on the lower levels of society. I put on the voice of a standard working man, made up a tiny bit of history, enough to be able to answer some rudimentary questions, and I blended right in.” He stops and looks around the table smiling, he then starts to walk around it again anti-clockwise. Click … Click … Click … Click …

  “What amuses me the most, is how none of this should have happened. I was quite happy to let the trip go as planned. You would have been none the wiser, and soon you'd all have been at home and cold with your loved ones. But Tom, Tom and his reports and his snooping. He ruined everything, and I had to think on my feet. He must have followed me onto the hangar. I didn't see him. He didn't know what I was up to, so he snooped. He saw me switch it on. Everything changed when that happened.” Click … Click … Click … Click …

  He walks behind Kerry and runs his hand through her hair. Every time he does a lap of the table he does it again, and I can see the impotent rage building up in her.

  “The people at the loading docks are too easy to buy off. Once I'd met with your fat benefactor Martin Hooper, showed him my CV full of lies, told him I had some money and would do the first trip for free as a trial run, he couldn't give me the job fast enough. Then straight to the docks to see if I could procure a container to go on board. Everyone down there was in on this little side-line. Just throw enough cash in their direction and you can dispose of anything. Little people fighting for scraps. But it served my purpose well enough.” Click … Click … Click … Click … He runs his fingers through Kerry's hair again.