Nick Bryan

fiction

Tuesday Serial Time: "Satellite Two"

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Hello!

Time for the second part of the serial, cleverly entitled “Satellite Two”. You might be able to take an intuitive stab at what the other two will be called. And yes, this too has been written as part of my NaNo word count.

For those just joining us, you may want to read Satellite One before continuing…

Satellite Two

By Nick Bryan

With a guttural grunt, Wendy staggered up the stairs and tried to lift her hands through the heavy shopping. Plastic bag handles had lashed them both below her waist, and now she couldn’t get to the key to open her own front door. Why couldn’t they fix the lights out here? It was cold, dark and unsettling; she didn’t feel safe in her own home despite living on the first floor.

Nonetheless, unless she put the stuff down, she would never get her keys out from behind the dangling frozen fish. She made one last attempt to slip a hand through, only for it to become tangled up, then crushed behind an icy mass of peas.

With an unfeminine swearword, Wendy staggered sideways, still barely able to see, and shoulder barged a wall. Finally, blackness defeating her, she let the Tesco bags thump to the floor and sifted through her pockets.

The keys eventually came free, her heart pounding. She squeezed the bridge of her nose with two fingers and told herself everything would be fine soon enough. Soon she’d be on the other side of that door enjoying a delightful evening of stew, whilst ignoring calls from insurance call centres.

There were four flats in that entire building, two on each floor, and the one opposite contained a couple. Wendy could hear them giggling as she reached for the keyhole, and shook her head sadly. She could afford this flat on her own, she told herself, so was higher on the economic scale than they were. Either that or they were richer as well, just taking a cheaper place to be sensible and save. That would be typical.

At long last, she slipped the keys into the door, desperate to feel the gears crunch open so she could flop into her armchair and take a well-earned deep sigh. And maybe after that, she’d consider unpacking the bloody shopping.

The proper deadlock came first, before she could turn the latch. Except it didn’t, because when she tried, it didn’t move. After a couple of grunts, she nervously twisted in the opposite direction. Maybe it was broken, she thought, until she felt a huge bolt crunch into place and lock her door.

To be honest, she’d rather it had been locksmith time. Wendy was usually meticulous about these things, so had someone been inside her flat? And somehow been able to open the lock? And then been too stupid to lock it on their way out?

Which meant either she had left the door unlocked by accident, or someone was still inside. She really hoped it wasn’t the stoners downstairs pissing around; she refused to feel terror over those two.

The latch opened normally; Wendy pushed the door open just wide enough to fit through and stepped inside. The flat was in darkness, the few things she could see appeared undisturbed. She heard a crash, but it was only the door falling shut behind her.

Shopping all but forgotten, she reached the living room, dominated by a huge window facing the suburbs. She was upstairs, and all the buildings nearby were the same height or smaller. The moonlight illuminated the room, showing up no-one in the flat, and this was swiftly getting eerie. Finally, she hit the lights.

She glanced into the kitchen, in case someone was rooting through her cupboards, then checked the bathroom as well, because there are some perverts out there, then swore and ran back into the corridor to get her shopping.

As she put the stuff away, she flicked the television on, in the hope that background chatter from the news channel might put her at ease. Yes, this was a step closer to becoming a lonely old woman, but these things are classics for a reason.

She slid a row of baked bean cans into a cupboard, as the man in the suit rambled. ‘… and reports of odd behaviour across the south west today, as it looks increasingly certain that an old Russian satellite will crash in the area.’

‘Most falling space debris burns up rather than striking the earth or lands at sea, but apparently NASA are almost certain that the remains will fall in the south west London region, probably within the next hour.’

Wendy put her corn flakes back down in the kitchen and edged slowly towards the voice. The TV, the moon and her cheap light bulb were now competing to provide a glow.

‘Experts say the odds of serious damage are small unless it lands directly on someone, but nonetheless, there have been selected outbreaks…’

 Suddenly, as Wendy stared in bare feet, there was a broken scream from across the corridor. Loud, high-pitched, female, and hadn’t those two been giggling twenty minutes ago?

‘…of violence and mania across the region…’

And then her door swung open. Had she left it on latch after bringing in the shopping?

‘… but police suggest, as a precaution…’

Finally, a figure wearing some kind of overall staggered into her room, trailing red and brown goo that smelt like death. Her eyes followed the mess back to the open door of the couple’s flat across the way. It occurred to her that she’d never bothered to find out their names. On that thought, Wendy turned around and vomited on her carpet.

‘… local residents lock their doors and stay inside.’

Copyright Nick Bryan 2011, please don’t steal, or at least email me before you do. And yes, it looks like I’m lurching from stoner comedy towards horror here. Or am I? Well, click through to Satellite Three to find out…

Tuesday Serial Time: "Satellite One"

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So, last Friday I warned you that I might be trying something a bit different with the website stories. Since I’m reliably producing a steady stream of fiction in November for NaNoWriMo, I have decided to move from the Friday Flash collective to the Tuesday Serial one.

And so, below is the first part of a four part story I’ll be posting through the month of November. Next part is next Tuesday. Enjoy.

Satellite One

By Nick Bryan

‘Dude, what time’s it meant to be coming past? Dude?’

No response. Alf waited five minutes, glaring at the corner that turned into their open plan kitchen, then shouted: ‘DUDE!!!’

‘Yeah, alright, one second.’ Ian didn’t sound impatient, merely preoccupied. ‘I’m just having a look at this thing.’

‘What thing?’ But he’d gone quiet again. ‘What thing?’

This time, screaming was not getting the job done. Swearing and gesturing about his flatmate’s selfishness, Alf hauled himself from the sofa with both hands.

He made it across the brown smoky haze of their living room in a couple of lumbering staggers. Considering the colour and the smell, you’d think the place would be a disgusting mess, but Alf and Ian were very pragmatic. When you spent so much time stoned, you didn’t want obstacles. You’d fuck your legs up constantly.

So it was an easy journey to the kitchen, which was full of fumes that were not steam. Ian was staring into a pan, sucking intermittently at his joint. Alf, happily assuming that was the source of the smoke, wandered over and followed his gaze.

And then, as he often did, panicked a little. ‘DUDE HOLY FUCKING SHIT.’

Inside the metallic saucepan, a bunch of carrots and broccoli had boiled dry, now cracking, crunching, blackening and becoming one with the base of the pan.

As Alf screamed and swatted at the dials, Ian sighed, picked up the nearby fire extinguisher and blasted the general area with foam. Since the thing had merely been placed on top of the hob, the sudden pressure sent it flying, clattering across the room, echoing down both their ear drums and making Alf yell all the louder.

Finally, it came to a stop, cracked vegetables flaking all over their floor and foam clogging up the works of their cooker. Miraculously, Alf’s manic flailing had switched off the gas, so they just stared. Their reverie was only interrupted by a pounding, crashing noise from through the wall, and a muffled yell of ‘Will you two shut up?’.

Finally, Ian said: ‘Well, I hope you’re happy. Old man Elson sounds fucking furious.’

‘Sorry, dude. Those were like zombie vegetables in there, though.’

‘Absolutely. Undead carrots. Smoke this and shut up, eh?’

His troubles suddenly forgotten, Alf nodded and bounced off to the living room, Ian trailing behind him.

‘So,’ flopping back on the sofa, Alf continued as if the zombie vegetable encounter had never happened, ‘what time is this thing coming past us?’

‘The satellite? Well,’ Ian picked up his laptop from the sofa and peered, trying not to drop ash into the keyboard, ‘I reckon it falls past in about half an hour, actually.’

‘Cooool. Out this side?’ And he pointed at the large window opposite the sofa, taking up a large portion of the flat’s wall.

‘That very one. It’ll be like watching TV. Really shit TV.’

‘Coooool.’

And, with that, they sat and they smoked. And, as it sometimes did, time got away from them a bit. They didn’t exactly pass out, but a session of leaning back against the cushions, which seemed to be a brief loll of the neck, stretched away into minutes, or even hours.

And after he wasn’t sure how long, Alf was roused from his unconsciousness by a loud, sudden high-pitched scream. It wasn’t a voice he really recognised, it definitely wasn’t Ian, so he looked around, shrugged, assumed someone in the building was having a lot more sex than him and let his head loll back again. Probably the couple upstairs, probably not old man Elson.

Who cares, really?

An uncertain amount of time later, Ian got up as well. And he really went for it, too; not only did his head to stir from the sofa, he staggered across to the kitchen to get a drink, strange lights flashing in this eyes.

One of them, in fact, looked worryingly like a red stain spreading down his wall. He knew that ceiling wasn’t entirely impermeable; he’d been worried about the smoke escaping up there earlier, but he sighed, shook his head and went back to lie down. Alf was the one who always yelled, freaked out and panicked, not him. He was going to stay cool.

Couldn’t even remember what they’d been waiting for, to tell you the truth.

And so, heroically, Ian returned to the sofa, looked at it, then thought, actually, he could go to bed couldn’t he? His room was only a few steps away; he wasn’t contractually obliged to pass out in the living room just because Alf had. And to tell the truth, the other guy was snorting and drooling more than Ian was really comfortable with.

So those were the last things either of them remembered of that night. Nothing cohered again until early the next morning when Ian, groaning, levered himself up and returned to the living room and threw the glass of water (that he’d never bothered drinking) over Alf.

‘Oi. Wake up.’

Alf, of course, didn’t calmly stir. He coughed, gurgled and made a great show of almost choking to death. Ian, used to this panto by now, barely reacted. ‘What? What is it, dude? What?’

‘We missed the satellite, you moron. Got too baked, passed out, it shot on by.’

‘Shit.’ Alf paused. ‘Ah well. Was still a fun night.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

Ian shook his head and returned to their bolt-on kitchen to take another stab at having a drink. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it as far as the tap. Because, it appeared, the red stain had not been a hallucination. In fact, the bloody drips had reached his floor and begun to congeal alongside a few flakes of heavily burnt broccoli.

‘Alf,’ he began, less forcefully than usual, ‘can you come have a look at something for me?’

Yes, blood streaming down the walls. An old-school cliffhanger, perhaps, but there it is. Copyright me 2011, please don’t steal, email me if you want to steal it in an authorised fashion, and read the next part… “Satellite Two”.

Friday short story time: "Just Some Guy"

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So, I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year to try and get some short stories out, and have decided that the website material totally counts as part of my word count. Therefore, I present to you the first 500ish words I wrote for NaNo.

It’s also a bonfire night themed story, because I own a calendar. Perhaps a little bit of a scary one too, maybe I’m not entirely over Halloween.

And next week, the website story routine may change a little. I’m working on something. For now, plenty more stories are available as ever.

Just Some Guy

By Nick Bryan

‘Oh, sorry, are you awake?’

‘Sorry about this. I was told the sedatives would keep you out cold, but I guess I need to have a word with the chap who sold them to me. Can you move?’

‘Twitch? Giggle?’

‘Blink?’

‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.  Sorry about the needle pricks around your wrist, it’s bloody hard to sew that close to someone’s skin. I almost used a stapler to hold the outfit in place, but then I thought, it won’t really work if you bleed too much.’

‘And I know what you’re thinking, and the pain too, but you can’t feel anything, can you?’

‘Or answer questions, sorry. I always get awkward when someone stares at me like that. But that won’t be a problem in a minute. I just need to get these boots on you and make sure the join is solid.’

‘Sorry if the wheelbarrow’s uncomfortable, I know you’re at a strange angle. Sorry, I’ll try and stop talking now.’

‘Well.’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, never mind. So, you’re probably wondering who I am, I suppose? Just some guy?’

‘Well, truth be told, I was watching the bonfire night fireworks last year with my girlfriend and one of them shot straight into her face. I was… upset, I’m sure you can understand.’

‘So I did a little querying, stole a little paperwork and found out who should’ve been making sure the explosives didn’t blow onlookers’ heads apart.’

‘Sorry, I’m babbling. I’ll put the hood on in a second, then I won’t be able to see your eyes, and maybe I’ll  stop. But it’s been a year since then, so I’ve had plenty of time to think of something apt. Because I know you lost your job, but that didn’t seem enough. Prison would’ve been a start, y’know?’

‘So, I went down to the local community centre and volunteered to supply the guy for this year’s bonfire. Apparently kids from local schools usually do it, but I kept on at them. Then I spent three months making this costume out of sacks. It has bits of straw stuck on the outside, can you see that there?’

‘Which I’m sure will be a great comfort to you. I guess I’d better give you another couple of sedative shots before we go out there, I’d hate for you to start thrashing around. And stop crying, you’ll get the neck damp.’

‘Anyway, it’s time for the hood. Just need to lift your head a little, there we go. Perfect. Now, it might get a little warm in there, I hope that’s okay.’

‘That’s a joke, did you get it? Because… actually, you know what? Now the hood’s on, I think I can just leave you be. I might allow myself the luxury of attaching that with the staples, though. A little blood should be fine through three layers of sacking.’

‘Then we’d best be on our way.’

Copyright me, please don’t steal, email me to talk about it, comments below welcome, happy Guy Fawkes night, try not to accidentally burn someone in a scarecrow. Thanks.

Friday short story time: "Living In Cars"

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Today, a story that started off as a broadly Halloween themed concept. I’m not sure if I quite stayed on topic, it might not be very scary, but nonetheless, I present it for your judgment.

Also, I find it helpful to imagine the cars in this story as being the ones from the Pixar animated movie Cars, which I have never seen. As ever, if you want to read more stories, they are in the archives.

Living In Cars

By Nick Bryan

Wayne let Doug drop, and then started scrambling over the fence himself, whilst his partner hissed at him to hurry up.

‘Hey, m’coming as fast as I can,’ Wayne hissed as he eased his crotch over the barbed wire, ‘you had me holding your bit of rope, this is hard shit on your own.’

That common sense wisdom didn’t seem to stop Doug muttered ‘C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon…’ as Wayne made small hops down the vertical, before letting himself drop the last few feet. Neither of them could really make out each other’s voices through their masks anyway.

‘Okay, I’m here, let’s get this over with.’

Wordlessly, the two of them fanned out among the cars on the forecourt, each trying to find something worth taking. They were only two guys, after all, and they didn’t have a massive fucking sixteen wheeler to ship a fleet out. Two cars, one each, choose them, ram the gate and drive off.

They knew they wouldn’t have long once they’d broken the entrance open, hence why they had to enter using proper cat burglar methods. So now they had a little more time to scan around. Doug was sure he’d seen a nice Mercedes somewhere and he was determined to find it, Wayne was more practical. There were perfectly decent family cars he could drive out much less conspicuously, make a few quid.

There was a crunch near his feet, and Wayne looked down sharply. Nothing except an orange toy car he’d stepped on. He ignored it in the end; they were after bigger game tonight. It was horribly dark though. If not for streetlights, they’d be blind.

This was the only place without security guards that sold big enough gear to make it worthwhile. A couple of cars, all told, would be enough to get them out of trouble.

Still, he wanted this over and done with as soon as possible. He found a huge family car, proper kid-mobile with seven seats, and nodded at it firmly. This was the sensible car of his dreams. Nice shade of blue, plenty of space, sat nav as standard. He could get enough for this to keep him out of debt and into beers for ages.

Impatiently, he looked around for Doug. He’d surely be eyeing up a couple of sports cars by now, torn between Merc and Ferrari. It was down to Wayne to stand firmly over him until he made a decision.

He dashed around the cars to where he’d last seen Doug and looked around. They were not using torches, but there ought to be enough reflected light from polished new cars to make a man moving around visible, surely?

Fortunately, his problem didn’t last long. Car headlights snapped on, and showed Doug caught in their beam, frozen like one of those deer you hear about. Wayne was about to yell at him for being a moron, when he realised two things.

Firstly, two different cars had hit their lights at once, parked facing each other, leaving Doug caught in the crossfire. Secondly, Wayne wasn’t been at the wheel of either.

Moments later, one of them twitched slightly. It was so slight that he could have imagined it, but that was the troubling part. It wasn’t a judder, a rumble or a cranking of gears, it was a living motion, a tremble. The kind of movement you don’t expect from a machine.

The headlights illuminated the front of both vehicles, and made it perfectly clear: there was no-one in the driving seat, unless they were hiding way down by the pedals.  Still, there was a mighty rumble as both engines started at once and, before Doug could move, they slammed together. In a certain light, the number plates and headlights had seemed to curl upwards in a grin just before.

Doug, of course, was crushed between them, his pelvis bleeding its goo out all over the paintwork of the left hand car, and something that looked worryingly like shit coming out to the right. Even worse, Wayne thought he could hear the two of them clanging together through Doug.

And that was all he saw before he turned and ran. Unable to face another clamber over the barbed wire, he headed for the gates, before remembering that he had nothing to smash through with. He was nowhere near strong enough to open them by himself.

And then he turned around to see a huge family car advancing on him. In fact, it was the same one he’d been eyeing up a few minutes ago. Seven seats, satnav, and that weird metal grin dented into its maw.

The engine was barking and growling like a dog, getting closer and closer, when suddenly the bonnet hurled itself open. The whirl of machines inside didn’t look like dead metal and plastic. Instead, they were shimmering and twitching like blood vessels, humming and beating like a heart.

Which was the last thought Wayne had time for, before a radiator hose whipped out and wrapped around his neck. But that was merely a precursor to the main event, when it yanked his head down over the edge of the engine compartment, before the bonnet came smashing back down again.

Copyright me, do not steal, email me to discuss the mechanics of stealing, Happy Halloween, try not to get caught peeing on anyone’s car.

Friday short story time: "Colder"

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Another slightly more flashy example of flash fiction this week, perhaps more an idle character exercise than a story, to be honest, but at least it’s something. I’m hoping to get the productivity going again in time for NaNoWriMo.

But there are plenty more short stories on the website, and my 12,000 word story in an anthology, so hopefully this isn’t too inconvenient.

Or, if you’d rather not pay money, consider liking my Facebook page, I’m shooting for the 20+ mark. (Begging is a valid social media strategy, yeah?)

Colder

By Nick Bryan

‘So you reckon the fact it’s gotten colder is evidence of global warming? Colder means “warming”?’

‘No.’  Louise cracked her knuckles. ‘That’s why we call it climate change now. To stop over-literal pedants saying they’ve disproved science through semantics alone.’

‘Oh. Right.’ He considered the sledgehammer, but it seemed a bit much. ‘So isn’t that a bit of a cheat?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if any change of weather proves you right, then what proves you wrong?’’

‘Normal seasonal patterns?’ She kicked the door, but it wasn’t moving.

‘I guess. But you could point to, like, tiny changes in the temperature and it would still be proving you right. You’ve cornered the market or whatever.’

‘Not sure that means what you think it does.’

‘Sorry, now who’s being pedantic?’

‘My mistake.’ She picked up the axe and hefted it between her hands, enjoying the weight. ‘But yeah, we know what a normal year looks like. We can allow for variation. But it’s November and everything is freezing cold. Surely this situation proves my point?’

‘This proves nothing. And put the fucking axe down, you’re not using that.’

‘Fine.’ And it clattered to the floor. ‘But this is normally when it’s meant to be getting a little chilly, maybe a few log fires and scarves. Instead all the trains have stopped and your garage door has frozen shut while we’re inside.’

‘And you think the solution is to ram an axe through it?’

‘You already turned down my suggestion of starting the car and ramming it open.’

‘For a logical scientist, you seem very big on smashing shit up.’

‘Personally, I got into science because I liked burning stuff with Bunsen burners. And don’t change the subject.’

‘How about this?’ He held up a blowtorch. ‘Sounds like just your style.’

‘You think it melts the ice?’

‘Well, I’m sure as shit hoping it doesn’t go through the door.’

‘We could just go back to sleep and hope it melts itself.’

‘Our tiny heater goes in half an hour. You first.’

‘Okay, but I’m the professional so I’m doing this. You stand over there.’

‘If you don’t let me, I’m telling all the other scientists you said “hope it melts itself”.’

‘… What?’

Copyright me 2011, please don’t steal, email to discuss authorised stealing, please save the polar bears from climate change. Thanks. Sorted.

Friday short story time: "Sketches Of Spain"

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This week’s story is a bit briefer than usual. Sorry about that, I’ve been kinda busy with novel rewrites and my masters starting up again. Still, I think it’s not bad and it’ll take you about half as long to read as usual, so give it a go anyway.

And as before, you can get the anthology I’m in for as little as three quid if you go for the PDF format. It’s a decent story, honest.

Sketches Of Spain

By Nick Bryan

‘So, my other friends have been saying that scrawling all over the walls and ceiling of my bedroom makes me insane.’

‘Because, y’know, I did. I mean, I drew all over it. Not splodges or patterns or crazy shit, I drew proper pictures. I managed to recreate Paris in watercolours next to my bed, all reflections and moonlight and whatever it is people like about that place.’

‘And then I sketched out Barcelona, although it’s tedious trying to make somewhere feel hot with only light black and white, but I gave it a shot. My point is, proper drawings, real art, I’m not crazy.’

‘I know producing decent paintings of sunflowers didn’t stop Vincent Van Gogh from being mentally ill, but I haven’t amputated anything or killed myself – well, obviously – all I did was draw. I’m pretty good at it too, I think.’

‘And it’s not as if my housemate came home and saw it all over the house, y’know, like in the movies, and then screamed and ran away while I grinned. I own the place, I warned him beforehand, I can turn my room into a walk-in postcard if I want, can’t I’

‘No dead pets, no tin foil hats, no voices. Nothing that isn’t really there or anything like that. I barely even talk to the cat, millions of people admit to doing that. And you don’t see them getting friends coming up and saying “Are you okay?” in a high-pitched mutter.’

‘Thanks for bringing the paint and stuff over, by the way, I thought you’d want to see what I did with the place. I mean, I took a load of pictures and put them on Facebook, but it’s not the same, is it? Check out the architectural detail on that Barcelona, you can practically smell the Gaudi.’

‘Well, if you could, y’know? I’m not crazy, just very good at drawing.’

‘And I know you’re about to nag me that it’s time I left the house, it’s been three months, but I figured this was the next best thing, you know? If you can’t go outside, bring the world to you. See? And totally rational, since I’m a good enough artist to pull it off.’

Copyright me 2011, no stealing, just email me and ask nicely. It’s only 400 words, for crying out loud. Other stories are also available.