Read Online Strangers in the Night by Raymond S Flex - Free Book Online
Authors: Raymond S Flex
Tags: Fiction
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ever-lasting stillness.
Mitts breathed in deeply. He tried to catch some of the smell of disinfectant.
But he couldn’t.
No matter how hard he strained himself.
How hard he implored his brain to pick it out from the cold odour of damp gravel and mud.
Mitts was ready to turn away from the outside world. He knew his father would soon be stirring.
He would be coming to check up on him.
Wouldn’t it be a shock for him to find his son gone?
For a few moments, Mitts played with that imagining.
His father happening upon his bedroom, upon Mitts’s empty camp bed.
What would be his father’s range of emotions?
He would be distraught, of course.
Perhaps he would risk tapping the red button to open the Restricted Area blast doors.
Maybe he would put the rest of them in peril.
Put his mother in peril.
No, Mitts couldn’t allow himself to be responsible for that.
He needed to return to his camp bed.
He needed to return to the Restricted Area.
As Mitts turned away from the ventilation hatch, something caught his eye.
Later, when he thought about it, he was sure his imagination plugged in many of the details.
Grey-purple skin.
Saucer-shaped, beady black eyes.
Spiderlike fangs.
Gooey spittle hanging down from them.
And then, the overwhelming stench of sulphur.
More than anything—more than anything else —Mitts wanted to scream.
He wanted to use all his strength to scream harder than he ever had before.
But he could not.
The soft night closed in on the two of them.
He could feel the warmth emanating from her body.
Her skin fragile as a rose petal.
And her body slick, well-synchronised with this world.
No stranger to its devices.
The silk of her dress up against his skin. The bubbles of champagne easing their way down his throat. The dryness it left in his mouth as the alcohol took with it his saliva. All moisture.
Left him gagging with thirst.
Now that they could no longer see one another, it was hard to tell where each of them began, where each one ended. And it occurred to him that it didn’t matter any longer. That whatever fiction he told himself—whatever lies he said—that was all they would be.
Because they would be designed for one purpose, and one purpose only.
To conceal reality.
He felt her draw close now.
Close enough that he might reach out and touch her.
But he was afraid . . . so afraid . . . and so she made the first move.
Her lips were warm and moist up against his earlobe as she whispered, “Five minutes to midnight.”
PART TWO
SAM AMERICA
The air was heavy with ash.
It fluttered down like light snowfall.
Layered down over the loose stones of the beach. And onto the surface of the steel-grey waves. Whether the water reflected the sky, or vice versa, was a matter for debate.
And one which, quite frankly, had lost all meaning.
Sam America could feel his muscles rippling beneath his white cotton shirt. His woolly hair twirled in the sulphur-stinking breeze. White stars speckled his Yankee-blue waistcoat. Confederate-red clung to the stripes of his trousers, and to his suspenders.
He wore a pair of bulky, ankle-high boots.
His hat—red-and-white vertical stripes up the crown; white stars on a blue background about the band—had blown away hours ago.
Somehow—for some reason—Sam America felt naked without his hat.
Almost as if he might be a post-apocalyptic Samsun.
Sheered of his strength.
But, deep down, Sam America knew that he still possessed his strength, and, more to the point, that it would never leave him.
Because what the world needed now—what it most needed right now—was a hero.
SEVEN YEARS
W hen Mitts woke to the sound of a child’s cries, he was confused.
Eyes still closed, he reached up and rubbed at his temples.
He padded about himself, trying to clarify his location.
His camp bed.
Beneath him.
That
Mitts breathed in deeply. He tried to catch some of the smell of disinfectant.
But he couldn’t.
No matter how hard he strained himself.
How hard he implored his brain to pick it out from the cold odour of damp gravel and mud.
Mitts was ready to turn away from the outside world. He knew his father would soon be stirring.
He would be coming to check up on him.
Wouldn’t it be a shock for him to find his son gone?
For a few moments, Mitts played with that imagining.
His father happening upon his bedroom, upon Mitts’s empty camp bed.
What would be his father’s range of emotions?
He would be distraught, of course.
Perhaps he would risk tapping the red button to open the Restricted Area blast doors.
Maybe he would put the rest of them in peril.
Put his mother in peril.
No, Mitts couldn’t allow himself to be responsible for that.
He needed to return to his camp bed.
He needed to return to the Restricted Area.
As Mitts turned away from the ventilation hatch, something caught his eye.
Later, when he thought about it, he was sure his imagination plugged in many of the details.
Grey-purple skin.
Saucer-shaped, beady black eyes.
Spiderlike fangs.
Gooey spittle hanging down from them.
And then, the overwhelming stench of sulphur.
More than anything—more than anything else —Mitts wanted to scream.
He wanted to use all his strength to scream harder than he ever had before.
But he could not.
The soft night closed in on the two of them.
He could feel the warmth emanating from her body.
Her skin fragile as a rose petal.
And her body slick, well-synchronised with this world.
No stranger to its devices.
The silk of her dress up against his skin. The bubbles of champagne easing their way down his throat. The dryness it left in his mouth as the alcohol took with it his saliva. All moisture.
Left him gagging with thirst.
Now that they could no longer see one another, it was hard to tell where each of them began, where each one ended. And it occurred to him that it didn’t matter any longer. That whatever fiction he told himself—whatever lies he said—that was all they would be.
Because they would be designed for one purpose, and one purpose only.
To conceal reality.
He felt her draw close now.
Close enough that he might reach out and touch her.
But he was afraid . . . so afraid . . . and so she made the first move.
Her lips were warm and moist up against his earlobe as she whispered, “Five minutes to midnight.”
PART TWO
SAM AMERICA
The air was heavy with ash.
It fluttered down like light snowfall.
Layered down over the loose stones of the beach. And onto the surface of the steel-grey waves. Whether the water reflected the sky, or vice versa, was a matter for debate.
And one which, quite frankly, had lost all meaning.
Sam America could feel his muscles rippling beneath his white cotton shirt. His woolly hair twirled in the sulphur-stinking breeze. White stars speckled his Yankee-blue waistcoat. Confederate-red clung to the stripes of his trousers, and to his suspenders.
He wore a pair of bulky, ankle-high boots.
His hat—red-and-white vertical stripes up the crown; white stars on a blue background about the band—had blown away hours ago.
Somehow—for some reason—Sam America felt naked without his hat.
Almost as if he might be a post-apocalyptic Samsun.
Sheered of his strength.
But, deep down, Sam America knew that he still possessed his strength, and, more to the point, that it would never leave him.
Because what the world needed now—what it most needed right now—was a hero.
SEVEN YEARS
W hen Mitts woke to the sound of a child’s cries, he was confused.
Eyes still closed, he reached up and rubbed at his temples.
He padded about himself, trying to clarify his location.
His camp bed.
Beneath him.
That
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