WhiteSpace: Season One (Episodes 1-6 of the sci-fi horror serial) (51 page)

“Mrs. Goldman,” Brent called, “Are you there?”

Nothing.

Weird.

Brent didn’t know the other neighbors on his floor, but Gina had recently become friends with a young mother a few doors down. Maybe they went there, Brent figured. He walked toward the end of the hall, but couldn’t remember if the woman lived in number 437 or 439.
 

He tried knocking on 437 first.

No answer.

He tried a couple more times, then went to 439.

No response.

What the hell?
 

People were always home, or at least it seemed that way. Brent was never able to sleep in because his neighbors were loud and the walls were thin. He’d wanted to move somewhere quieter for years, somewhere with neighbors who actually left the building every now and then. Brent turned and tried the door across the hall, 440.

No response.

What the hell?
 

Brent turned around and headed up the hallway, stopping to knock at each door along the way.

One, two, and then five more doors. Nothing. He continued down the hall, his heart thudding, knocks turning to pounding at each door.
 

By the time he reached the end of the hallway, he was hot and sweaty, yelling. “HELLO?! ANYONE?!”

Nothing but black silence. The darkened hall seemed to constrict as his mind started racing.

Impossible. There’s no way that nobody’s home. No fucking way. Unless . . .

Terrorists.

The word bubbled to the surface as an answer to a question he’d not yet had the courage to ask. They were in New York, so it wasn’t implausible. He raced back to his apartment, door still open, went to the windows and pulled the curtains aside, then looked down on the city streets. The empty city streets.

Brent was speechless, his heart on pause, eyes swimming in and out of focus.

“What the fuck?”

It didn’t add up. If there were an attack, there would be bodies. If there was an evacuation, surely his wife would’ve woken him. Unless maybe it happened while she was out and unable to get back.

That thought died on the vine when he spotted Gina’s purse and keys on the kitchen table, right where she put them every night before bed, ready for the next morning.
 

He looked back down. No people. No cars on the street. Well, none that were moving, anyway. Brent could see a handful that were either in the middle of the street, or had crashed into the cars parked on the opposite side of the street. He could see exhaust from some of the cars, their lights still on.

It was as if everyone on his block just simultaneously vanished. Everyone except Brent.

He went to Ben’s room again to get a look from his son’s window, which had a slightly better angle at the cross street. Something sharp stung his foot. He cursed as he stumbled, glancing at the carpet to see a small blue train.

Stanley Train, Ben’s favorite toy, which he carried with him everywhere, including to bed. It was there, just sitting on the floor. Brent bent and picked it up. Its wide eyes and eternally giant smile stared back at him. Wherever his little boy was, he was without his favorite toy.
 

He s
e
t the train on Ben’s pillow and returned to his room. He got dressed, then grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone. He shoved everything in his jeans, then went to the kitchen, found the notepad and a pen and left a note for Gina.

“Where did you go? Went outside to look for you. Knocked on doors at our neighbors, nobody’s home. I’ll be back at 1 p.m. If you come home, wait for me.

Love,

Brent”

Halfway through the front door, Brent thought of something, then went back to his son’s room, grabbed Stanley Train from the pillow and put it in his pocket.
 

**

Brent took the stairs down to the next floor, and started knocking on those doors, despite not knowing
anyone
on this floor.

At the sixth door without any response, he worked up the courage to try a doorknob. Locked.

Halfway down the hall, he got an idea. He found the fire alarm and pulled it. The alarm blared; a banshee shriek amid the quiet. Brent covered his ears, watching the hall, waiting for people to flee.
 

Not a single door opened.

“Fuck it,” Brent said, and went to apartment 310, tried the knob. It was locked. He backed up a bit, kicked at a spot right below the doorknob and was surprised at how easily the door burst open.
Why even have locks?

“Hello?!” he shouted.

No response.
 

The apartment was as vacant as his own. Pictures on the wall showed a Puerto Rican family of four. Parents with two twin boys, about 10 years old. He was about to leave the apartment, but movement grabbed him. Something just beyond the sheer curtains covering the living room window. He moved closer and saw the slinky silhouette of a cat sunning on the windowsill. How it could relax with the alarm blaring was beyond Brent, but then again, so were most things feline.

He went to the curtain, pulled it aside, and saw the white long-haired cat stretched out, face nuzzled against the warm windowsill. As he reached out to pet the cat, it started to roll over to show its belly. As it turned, Brent jumped back.

The cat’s face had no eyes or mouth.

Brent fell back two steps, letting the curtain fall into place, his heart racing, half expecting the monstrosity to jump on him or worse. He stared at the curtains, dread creeping up his spine.

What the hell is that?

He watched the cat’s silhouette as it laid back down. He worked up the courage to pull the curtain aside again to make sure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen. The cat’s face was turned down, so he had to reach out, hesitantly, again and pet its head to get it to look back up at him. As his fingers touched the cat’s fur, he felt a slight shock, like static electricity. The cat didn’t seem to notice the shock. It began purring in response to the touch, then lifted its chin to meet Brent.

Only this time, the cat had eyes, wide blue ones, and a mouth.

Brent shook his head, feeling stupid. He continued to pet the cat’s head as the alarm kept ringing.

“You deaf, kitty?” Brent asked.

No response. Which was a good thing, or Brent might have just jumped right out the window.
 

He glanced out at the street below to see if tenants were pouring from the building’s lower floors because of the fire alarm. If so, he didn’t see anyone.
 

As the curtain drifted back into place, he saw movement on the street below.
 

He snatched the curtain aside again, and glanced down at the apartment building across the street. A man in a dark sweater, baseball cap, and pants emerged from beneath the green awning and onto the street, looking around. He was too far away to get a good look at, particularly under a baseball cap, but something about his gait suggested he was nervous.

Brent jumped up, excited, and began smacking the window, yelling, “HEY! HEY!”

The cat leaped down and scurried out of sight.

The man on the street didn’t seem to hear Brent. He was walking north along the street, sticking to the sidewalk. Brent stopped trying to get his attention. While the man did glance over at the building a couple of times, likely drawn by the sound of the siren, his attention was mostly on something further down the road that Brent couldn’t see.

Brent watched, waiting to see where the man would go.

He seemed to be looking for someone. The man pulled a pair of binoculars out of his jacket and scanned the street in both directions. Then, he raised his binoculars up toward Brent. Brent waved frantically. For a moment, the man paused, and Brent was certain that he’d seen him. But he put the binoculars down and turned quickly to the north side of the street as if he’d heard or seen something.

The man lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused to get a better look at whatever had his attention.

Brent turned, pushing his face against the window, struggling to see whatever the man was now staring at, but the angle was marred. He looked back down at the man, only to see him running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, and back into the apartment building he’d come from.
 

Brent pressed his face against the window again, struggling to see what scared the hell out of the guy. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it.

Hide
, a voice in Brent’s head said.
Hide now.
 

It’s coming.

* * * *

Visit:

http://serializedfiction.com/yesterdays-gone
 

for more information.

Sneak Peek of ForNevermore

From the writers of the groundbreaking post-apocalyptic serial
Yesterday’s Gone
, comes a dark new fantasy horror serial,
ForNevermore
.

All 17 year old Noella Snow ever wanted was a normal life.
 

But normal died with her mother, minutes after she was born. Then again when her father was murdered before her eyes on her seventh birthday. Now she spends her days in quiet misery, an outcast at school, harboring a secret crush on her best friend, Sam.

Noella’s only happiness lies in her dreams, in a world where her father still lives and Dante, a mysterious stranger with a deadly touch, guards over her.

Now those dreams have turned to nightmares as Noella begins hearing voices, witnessing murders she can’t possibly know of, and seeing the monsters from her sleep merging into her waking life.
 

Noella doesn’t want to return to King’s Point, the psychiatric hospital where she was forced to go after an “episode” two years earlier.
 

She tells herself she’s better.
 

But then one night Noella sees the impossible... Dante, watching her from afar, as he has for centuries – nearly as long as he's loved her.

Is Noella losing her mind? Or is she linked to a hidden world, destined to be normal ForNevermore?

ForNevermore
is a bold new paranormal serial, with awesome cliffhanger endings that will make you feel like you’re watching your favorite TV show right on your Kindle.
 

* * * *

Check out the first two exciting chapters of this new paranormal serial.

CHAPTER ONE

Aurora Falls, New York

Friday, October 26

9:50 p.m.

On the short list of things worse than what had already happened to Noella Snow today, being murdered was definitely one of them.

It was her 17th birthday, and was officially her worst birthday in 10 years. Considering what happened on her 7th birthday, that was saying a lot.

She was working the counter at Keefer’s Koffee, Aurora Falls’ pathetic excuse for an echo of Starbucks, and wondering why she’d even agreed to cover Tammy’s shift. She looked at the clock for the hundredth time. Ten minutes until closing. It seemed as if the clock was conspiring to keep her from the bed she couldn’t wait to fall into, where she could pull the covers over herself, and try to forget this day ever happened.
 

Noella was wrapping unsold brownies in thin sheets of ice blue cellophane so they’d be “fresh” for the morning rush, while ignoring the urge to shove one, or five, in her mouth. Sure, it would dull the day’s pain . . . for a few minutes. But once she swallowed, the dull ache would return, stronger, accompanied by her old friend guilt.
 

Treat yourself, it’s your birthday, girl.

It
was
her birthday, and she had grown into a slim young woman, but neither changed a childhood of name-calling, with barbs such as
Thunder Thighs, Chunky Monkey,
and
Patti Fatty,
crushing trust and reducing her confidence to crumbs.

Noella slid the tray of brownies into the cooler with a decisive shove, just as the front door dinged and split the silence of the nearly empty coffee shop. She looked up, and felt a cold snake of terror slither across her shoulders, then down her spine.
 

Noella wasn’t sure how she knew, whether it was the voices she’d taken pills to silence, or a hunch, but she knew for certain that death had entered Keefer’s.

The weird thing was that guy didn’t
look
dangerous.
 

He was young and handsome, even in soft wash jeans and a moody-looking leather jacket. His blue New York Mets hat and thick mop of brown hair made him look like any one of the hundreds of guys who came into the coffee shop. But there was something in his eyes that bled into Noella’s, something that said: