|
He was sat on the inter-hub heading from the port, alone. Others of course sat on the bus but none with him. None looked at him either. He looked like what he was, a dead man walking, a corpse that forgot to lie down. The cancer had chewed his organs and twisted his bones. What little hair he had was scraped over his skull and hung limply down his neck. Despite the summers sun his pallor was that of the grave, grey and lifeless. He smelt of hospitals and clean beds and urine, he smelt of old age and death.
The sun bleached clothing he wore hung over him like the clothing on a scarecrow too long neglected. The large trail coat he wore was weathered and frayed and seemed to shroud the skeletal frame in leather.
His large wide brimmed hat sat crumpled in his lap, his black gloved hands resting clenched beneath it.
One more, one final finality and he would be done, forgiven.
Forty millennia he had been forced to stalk these dull plains, to exist a meager solitary being rather than the life he remembered, coveted and needed. To feel the cool dark of the infinite again, to feel the breeze of the stars freeze his tears and exalt one more in the rays of suns.
One fething more...
The shuttle slid into the station, a neon lit purgatory, a desert of concrete and broken glass and dreams. The shuttle quickly emptied and it's temporary denizens fled back to their lives.
Apart from him, he stood on the brink of the doorway staring into the cities promise, sensing and feeling his salvation.
It was at rest some mile away to the east.
Jamming the battered hat over his skull like scalp he squared too thin shoulders and limped out for one, final, hunt.
Kevin Jameson was sweating again. Though he slept his body twitched and spasmed as he fought his inner daemons and they won, again and again. His wife had long since given up trying to sleep in the same bed and had moved into their spare bedroom. The children thought that Daddy's night terrors were funny but it was usual for them to hear him scream out so they too slept the sweet sleep of innocence.
In the depth of this nightmare sleep Jameson was again running, hiding and dying, an unseen hand always slaying him when he felt at last he was safe, unseen jaws crushing his skull as he fled shadows. Every night without fail.
Every, single, night.
Tonight was no different, it was dark, he slept and he died, over and over again.
He was a sales manager for a hard wood company, times were tough but he had secured a decent contract that would mean the company would stay afloat for another two possibly three years without the other sales his team brought in. The kids were happy at school, Simone had a boyfriend that she thought he did not know about and Kevin Jnr was failing to get into the first XV at school. His wife had her own career, complicated accountant gak he did not really understand but she seemed happy.
They had moved habs three years ago and were now in the routine of paying what was at the time a scary mortgage on a nice place. They were settled, happy.
And every night he was hunted down and slain over and over again.
Every morning at sun up he woke with a start, fought for his breath and then promptly forgot and showered and enjoyed his calm safe life with his calm , happy family.
Then for the first time in thirty years he saw his killer, a skull faced cadaver of a man, leering from the shadows as he limped towards and he woke...happy.
He rang the door bell and waited, his salvation was coming to him so he could wait. A few moments later and the outside light came on and a figure could be made out behind the obscured colored glass of the front door. It fumbled with the locks on the door and finally pulled back to reveal a sweaty man in his early 40's, not fat but comfortable living had enlarged him. He wore a tatty green dress robe and a pair of blue slippers, all hastily tied and applied. Sleep dust glued one eye but in the other simple recognition shone like a beacon.
"Ready ?" the stench of night breath was heavy on the crisp night air but the anticipation was easy to hear in the tired man's voice.
|
