Read Online Aphelion by Andy Frankham-Allen - Free Book Online

thought that that nakedness was once embracing Iracema. His Iracema!
    “Yes, Corey Jordan. Such righteous rage is needed.”
    Something stirred in the darkest corner of the room. Corey glanced over, and a black shape, a shadow, emerged from the corner, moving close to him. Without meaning to, he opened his hand and the shadow drifted onto his palm. His fist tightened around something hard. Corey looked down, and saw the black club he was holding.
    “No, no,” Duncan said, sniffing away like a scared child.
    Corey stepped forward, fully aware of what he had to do. Scum like Duncan Leman were not allowed to continue. Stealing Iracema from him, the racist attacks, everything about Duncan was wrong. Duncan staggered back against the wall, his whole body shaking.
    “And now your dream comes true, Duncan Leman,” the Silhouette said.
    “Please no. I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
    “Don’t you dare, Dunc! I always knew you were scum,” Corey said, raising the club in the air. “I just never realised how much.” And, with a sadistic pleasure he never knew he could possess, Corey proceeded to strike Duncan with the club. Again and again and again….
    *
    It was sometime later when Corey stopped, his rage having drained away. He looked at the pulpy mess that had once been Duncan Leman, and he stepped back, the club falling out of his hand. He felt satisfied, yet at the same time disgusted with himself. He knew that, without a doubt, the world was a better place without people like Duncan, but he still felt sickened by the violence he was able to dish out.
    He turned to the Silhouette. Explanations later, he had said. Well, it was later, and Corey was sure he deserved some answers now.
    The Silhouette was gone. Corey looked around the room frantically, and as his eyes came to rest on the bed they widened in horror. There was no one else in the bed, and no sign that there ever had been. His throat went dry.
    He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the warmness between them. He glanced down, and noticed the dark red substance that covered his hand. Blood. The exact same blood that covered the corpse on the floor before him.
    “Oh god,” Corey breathed, as realisation dawned.

One Mistake
    He looked down at the card in his hand; the rather shaky card. No, that wasn’t true. Cards, being inanimate objects, didn’t shake by themselves. It was his hand that was shaking, the nerves threatening to get the better of him. Clasping his wrist, he attempted to steady the offending hand, and focussed once more on the address scribbled on the back of the card. He had to admit his handwriting was pretty shit, really, and hard to read at the best of times. And writing while nervous helped his script none. Still, he was familiar with his own writing enough to be able to decipher the address, and looked up from the card at the small house before him.
    No doubt about it. The address was the same.
    But did he really want to do this?
    His legs started moving, one foot down, then the other, taking him towards the house. He stopped at the front door, and his knuckles rapped loudly on the cracked wood. He waited. And as he waited he thought. Why was he here, and why in the hell had he even bothered calling the number on the card?
    It seemed public phone boxes were becoming a thing of the past, something only those unwilling to change with the times would use. Fossils. Like him. He was barely into his forties, but he refused point blank to buy a mobile phone, or have one of those, what did they call them, oh yeah, one of those compacts . They seemed to cost a lot of money to do things he didn’t understand. Besides which, he always reasoned, if people wished to contact him they could always ring him at home. House phones had served people well since the late nineteenth century, so why this bizarre need to have every part of their lives subject to the intrusions of others? Bad enough those random companies could contact him in the privacy of his own