Read Online Sin by Shaun Allan - Free Book Online Page B

since I'd
blown apart that gull. Even in September it doesn't begin to get
dark until around seven-ish. The clouds, my Reaper's cloak made
real, were dragging across the sky, as if they were readying
themselves to wipe us all out, although that was perhaps wishful
thinking. The sun had disappeared, either behind the cloak or
beneath the horizon I didn't know. Still, it didn't feel that late. It didn't feel like I'd been walking seven hours
instead of two.
    I wasn't hungry, nor was I
tired. My legs weren't heavier than a mobster's hit, concrete shoes
and all, and there were no stitches in time to save nine digging
their wee ways into my side. So why was it getting darker than Dr.
Connors' mood the time Bender Benny told him he (Dr. Connors) was
the crazy one and everyone else was saner than a rattlesnake on
ecstasy? I didn't quite get the rattlesnake analogy, but sometimes
Bender Benny talked a lot of sense. Mr. Shrink-o-matic 2010 didn't
appear to think so though, and had made sure Benny had realised the
error of his ways.
    We didn't see the Bender for a
few days after that. It might have been about a week. He was
quieter.
    I figured that, if I could have
been plonked on a beach somewhere when I'd intended on ending up in
the belly of the dragon, I could, I supposed, equally have been
plonked a few hours later. Maybe teleportation included a slight
risk of time travel. Perhaps it was the equivalent of turbulence on
an aeroplane flight. No oxygen masks were there to drop in the case
of an emergency, and no air stewardesses were on hand to show you
the wheres and whyfors of a life jacket. If you hit a cosmic air
pocket on your teleporting way from one place to another, maybe you
hiccupped a few hours into the future. Hey, if we're walking in the
realm of Star Trek, why not add in a dash of Doctor Who for good
measure?
    I was new to this. Even I didn't
entirely believe, deep inside, that I could teleport. Even I still
thought I hadn't done exactly what I had done. It was all
madness. Maybe I was in my padded cell, strapped up tighter than
Scrooge and doped up to Alpha Centauri. Maybe none of this was real
and I was a pigment of Bender Benny's emancipation.
    But the death told me it was
real enough. All the souls, torn from their bodies like giblets
from a chicken, en-masse screamed at me that it was real
enough.
    Still. Time travel, on top of
everything else, was just a step too far over the border into
Crazytown, population 1. I'd just been wandering for longer than
I'd thought. Time flies by when you're having fun, or causing
youngsters to plough their cars into the trunk of a tree.
Apparently time is relative. Who's relative, I don't know. Does
time, his cousins, his mum and dad and the dog gather around the
table for Christmas dinner, ready to tuck into too much turkey and
pigs-in-blankets? Which one refuses to wear the paper crown from
the cracker, that's what I wanted to know.
    I did begin to feel tired then.
The energy drained from my body like a lightbulb being switched
off. I was suddenly knackered and the thought of taking any more
steps was so daunting, I'd have rather kissed a pissed off
Rottweiler. I stopped and stood there, looking at nothing in
particular, feeling... feeling floppy. I just couldn't be bothered.
I didn't know how far I had to go, mainly because I had no idea
where I was going. A house could chance across my path, but would I
stop there? What if I did? What then? Would someone open the door,
a big old farmer or a young, vulnerable farmer's wife?
    "Hey there," I'd say. "I wonder
if you could help me. You see, I've just escaped from a lunatic
asylum..."
    Would the resident reach for a
gun to shoot me? Would it be a phone to call the police? Perhaps it
would help if I mentioned how, precisely, I'd managed my
escape.
    "I teleported out," I'd tell
them. "It's a simple trick of matter transference. You should try
it; it'd save you a fortune in taxi fares."
    Perhaps not.
    It did occur to me, as it