Ugly Beautiful (22 page)

I didn't stop and kept running, turning a sharp left and back onto the first corridor again leading towards the long, trailing black window. Eventually I re-emerged into the third corridor with the doorway leading into the dark room where the broken computers, viewing window and skeleton remains lay. I came to a breathless halt gasping and wheezing for my natural breath to return. Whatever it was, a trick of the eye or perhaps not. The shadow had gotten away from me.

Chapter 3

I caught up with my breathing and glanced both ways down the corridor again just to be sure that there really was nothing lingering around. I made my way down towards the end of the corridor and turned the sharp left onto the fourth and final straight. This of course would eventually lead me back up towards the first room with the pod beds inside and where I'd first begun my random wanderings. I noticed on my recent spontaneous mad dash around the corridors that there had been another two fully opened doorways along this final stretch. Although both seemed to be part of the same lighted room. The first door led into a small shiny area with solid metallic cupboards at chest height scattered round two walls. More shiny metallic worktops lay underneath.

Was this some kind of kitchen area?

To the left the room connected openly with a larger room containing two metallic tables surrounded by four chairs at each. At the far end of the room the second doorway led back out into the final stretch of corridor. I left these new rooms for the moment and continued back along the last corridor outside towards the dim pod room. I had a slight itch to investigate further the other sealed pods lying inside.

I entered the room and curiously approached the row of six pods. My pod remained opened while the computer screens and various buttons surrounding it appeared dead and inactive. The computers and screens above the other pods flashed away wildly but there was one particular large flashing button that stood out from the rest. On my pod it was no longer active, but on the remaining five it flashed a faint red upon three of them and a faint green upon the other two which rested side by side next to mine. I felt confused and approached the nearest green flashing pod to take a closer look at its active and numerical filled screen.

The numbers upon the screen read: 10 11 03 02 23 16 23.

The last number 23 seemed to be counting down in seconds. I approached the second pod's screen which read exactly the same as the previous. I felt more confused. A frustrated urge to touch or slam a couple of buttons and screens just to see what the hell would happen overwhelmed me. I managed to refrain from doing so. Instead I turned scanning all around, looking for something else to catch my eye. Anything I could perhaps make sense of. Finally my eyes settled upon another active but larger looking computer system standing all by itself right up against the back corner of the pod room. It was almost hidden away from view.

I walked towards it. There were more buttons and keypads decorated all over the new large computer system. Nothing made any sense here too. I studied a series of six buttons which stood out. Three of them were flashing red. Two were flashing green and one wasn't flashing at all. This made a little more sense and resembled a similar pattern to the flashing lights upon the pods across the room. Right beside the very top flashing button was a small digital screen with writing.

The writing read 'EMERGENCY DE-HIBERNATION.'

I hovered my hand over the third and fourth green flashing buttons and pushed down upon the fourth. To my surprise one of the pods behind made a loud beeping noise. I turned around to see the fourth flashing pod, the first of the two remaining green ones, flashing orange while beeping. After a thirty second delay the pod lid amazingly lifted open with a loud hiss. A vast amount of steam seeped out into the surrounding air, just like it had done from my own pod earlier. The strange sucking machine on the ceiling sprang back to life, opening up its flapping jaws to draw all of the new wafting steam towards it.

I stood still, watching curiously and with a dumb struck awe as the whole process played out and the remaining patches of steam evaporated into the ceiling. To my surprise and when the steam vanished, a young and pretty brunette woman, groggily sat upright from inside the pod like a frightened and fragile little animal. The woman wiped the sleep away from her eyes. She scanned around the dim room as best she could, looking nervous and confused. Her eyes hadn't fully adjusted to the dim light and she didn't see me standing in the distance. The woman took a deep breath. With a great deal of effort she pulled herself up and out of the pod. As she stood to her feet I could see she was wearing a thin white gown which fell to her lower thighs, fitting her body nice and snug. I watched the woman with a curious fascination. When she stepped out from the pod she looked even more disorientated. She scanned the room again turning in my direction. I sensed she felt scared and just like me had no idea where the hell she was. She crossed her arms firmly over her breasts and shoulders. Not because she was cold I think, but because she was trying to hide her vulnerability. She continued making darting and confused glances all around. The woman's gaze finally fell upon mine and we stared curiously at one another.

A long silence engulfed us.

I couldn't help from looking at her slowly, up and down. She was pretty, pale and thin. Even though she had a very slim outline to her body there were still some nice curves there particularly on her hips and breasts. I let my gaze linger for an overly long second right where her gown came to a smooth end halfway down her pale thighs. I felt the slightest of alien stirs in my loins. The woman, feeling uncomfortable from my lingering stare, moved her hands away from covering her breasts to tug at the lower end of her gown. Feeling her discomfort reflected back at me I immediately broke my gaze, returning it to the woman's pretty pale face.

'Who, who are you?' The woman said nervously.

I paused, more in a stuttering shock at the sound of another's voice in this strange, isolated world. I struggled to think of a reasonable answer to her question. Nothing came to my blank, numb mind.

'I, I don't know.' I said meekly. 'I was hoping you might be able to tell me. Do you know who I am?'

'Where am I? Where is this place?' she continued anxiously ignoring my question.

'I don't know.'

I could see tears forming in her eyes. I could sense she was ready to break down into a fit of sobs at any second. She shook her head in despair. Finally she glanced nervously around at the sleeping pods again until her eyes settled down upon her own pod.

'I have one too.' I said, blurting the first thing that came to me. Like I were trying to somehow make her trust me by relating this fact. I moved closer and pointed down towards my own fully opened sleeping device lying two pods down from hers. She glanced at it raising her hands to her head, deeply distressed.

'My head, it hurts so much.'

'Mine too. But it goes away... eventually. Once you start moving around.'

I let out a half hearted smile which made the muscles around my mouth ache a little. When was the last time I'd ever smiled?

To my relief the woman let out her own faint smile. It felt good to see it. Without thinking, I reached my hand out towards the woman and beckoned her to take it.

'Come with me. I want to show you something.'

The woman's smile faded, replaced with a look of confused and nervous curiosity. Without words she trustingly took my hand. It felt good to feel her skin against mine. Her hand was soft and warm to touch. It was another nice yet alien feeling that flowed throughout my entire body. I clasped her hand tighter, leading her out of the dim pod room and out into the bright main corridor. Like me, the woman took a few moments to shield her eyes from the bright lights on the ceiling.

'What is this place? Where are we?'

'I told you I don't know. I really don't.'

I led her down the first corridor directly towards the large black window at the far end. This window which gave me such intense feelings of dread and despair, deep inside the pit of my stomach every time I thought about it.

'Where are we going?'

I ignored her. She continued to glance around at the lit up corridor in awe. When we reached the large black window I brought us to an abrupt halt just a yard or two away from the glass. The woman focussed all of her attention onto the window as her eyes widened and she stared hard, right at it, utterly fascinated.

'What is it?'

'Look.'

I motioned with my hand urging her to move right up to the window to get a better view. She let go of my hand and approached just as I had done. She gazed at her own reflection in great wonderment, letting out a burst of childlike laughter as she pointed at both of our reflections in the pitch black pane. After a while she turned to me for approval I think and to check if I could also see this fascinating apparition of our reflections. Then she turned back, moving closer. She touched her face and hair as if checking to see if the reflected image would mimic her own movements. She looked both amazed and baffled when the image did. She moved even closer pressing her face right up against the window. She tried gazing past her own reflection, out into the deep never ending regions of darkness.

Suddenly the woman backed away from the window frightened, just like I had done after realising there was something else out there. Something big, vast and very daunting. A massive canvas of twinkling darkness beyond the glass.

'What is that? What is that out there?' She said anxiously. I could only shrug back still baffled myself.

'I have no idea.'

The woman's facial expressions changed in a heartbeat and she sobbed. Immediately she placed her hands to cover her face and eyes. I felt uncomfortable. I couldn't think of anything to say or do in that moment. Then my instincts took over. I moved closer towards her. I raised my arms a little unsure about what to do next, but without thinking I raised my hands and arms uncomfortably higher to wrap them around this mysterious woman's upper back. I pulled her tightly against my body while she buried her head deep into my chest, sobbing harder. All I could do was hold her. Comfort her with an overwhelming, growing urge inside to protect her. It felt good.

Lust for Life

A young working class man with terminal cancer decides to rebel against society and go out with a bang by living out his dreams and wild fantasies. But even when he finds love and a new lease of life, it fails to stop his new adventurous ways from spiraling into an unstoppable train wreck of carnage.

If you knew you only had a short time left to live on this planet, really live. What would you do with that precious time?

A dark, sexy, black humorous tale of sex, violence, the male psyche, and an unstoppable whirlwind adventure of finding love in the least likely location.

Prologue

I jumped into the police car. A sexy, firm yet official female voice on the car radio called out for the real owner of the vehicle, but he was currently indisposed and wouldn't be replying anytime soon. I switched the radio off. The keys were still in the ignition. I turned on the engine and accelerated away. Not even looking back for a second. All I could think about was getting back to Celine and our new life together. Packing up our shit and getting the hell out of this goddamn country once and for all. Just take off to France, like Celine had suggested, and make a go of some kind of life on the continent. Of course I felt bad about Mum too. I thought about driving back down to the borders to see her, if only for ten minutes, to apologise for what a horrible, inconsiderate, bastard shite of a son I'd been to her all those years. How I'd never kept in touch. That I'd never looked after her and cared for her like any decent good son should have watched over his only parent. I'd never even told her how much I loved her. Not once.

I shook those thoughts from my head. Realistically, there was no time. I would phone her, either on the road south with Celine, or whenever we reached just wherever the hell we ended up. If I owed the woman who gave me life and did the best job she possibly could at raising me anything, then I owed her that much.

Everything was going swell driving along the A1 from Dunbar to Edinburgh, until I hit the Musselburgh turnoff and a police transit van exploded onto the dual carriageway directly behind me from the Haddington roundabout. The lights on the van were flashing wildly, and the horrendous noise from the sirens echoed throughout the countryside.

This didn't look good.