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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE |
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06-01-04 (p3) |
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Conflict by Andrew Bellingall |
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Chapter 3: The Many Shades Of Death There were inconsistencies in the nothingness. That's what struck him first. In parts the infinite blackness was blacker than in other parts. What the fuck was that!?! A giant fuzzy balloon of nothing passed right before his eyes. It was black, but he could still make it out, it being less black than the black background. There were a thousand of these fuzzy black balloons and yet there were none. It was difficult to work out where the black background ended and the black foreground began, such was the blackness.
The major question concerned his eyes. Were they open or closed? He decided to open them to see what would happen. Nothing. OK, they must already be open. He would close them to see the results. Nothing. His eyelids must be either opened or closed, but paralyzed. Obviously. Along with his eyelids, he could not feel his legs or arms, nor even the beating of his heart. Dead. He must surely be dead. If he couldn't feel the air filling his lungs or the blood coursing through his heart then he was obviously dead. This had been dawning on him, but he didn't like to face it. But then again he was thinking. He was thinking that he was thinking and so must therefore be alive.
A dream perhaps? If this was a dream it was one that he had conscious control over. This was obvious from the way he was able to think. Blake tried to imagine someone's face; Chantel's face. There was something there, it was kind of working. But he couldn't make the shape out really. In a way he could see her, but it wasn't like TV - nor was it as clear as a dream. The last thing he remembered was the Crofters. He had been in there with Maldina and Wilde. Maybe he was just in a drunken stupor, God knows it wouldn't be the first time. He was probably lying in a pool of his own vomit somewhere, and should be quite thankful that he couldn't see, smell or feel anything. It was the first time in his life that this thought had cheered him up.
Blake quickly realized that he should have been awake by now. He could not move closer to consciousness, nor further away from it. In any dream he had ever had, if he had realized it was a dream he had woke up. But not now. Then this is death. Not so bad really. Seems to be pure thought, Blake thought. Is that what the human spirit is? Pure thought? It seemed logical in a way, but then a horrible thought occurred to him. Would it be like this for eternity? Just thinking and nothing else? It was like waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. Just lying there awake, thinking. Would it be like this for eternity? Maybe this was hell then. No flames or horny headed demons just endless night. Christ, what shit!
Blake tried to get a grip of himself, calm himself down a little. He would think of something positive. His best experience. For a minute he had trouble recollecting good experiences, never mind, his best. He decided to plump for sexual experiences, nothing too deep at first. What was the best sex he had ever had? Well the most recent was Chantel. Not bad at all, but far too brief to be in contention for a serious prize. Then, going back, next there was Wilde. Consistently good, he thought. In fact there were some occasions when she woke him up in a particularly interesting way, that were real contenders. She had not done this many times, but when she had done it, it had been fantastic. Which was better, her straddling him, or blowing him. That's a tough one. Blake was feeling better already.
Going back a little further and Blake was with Brompton. Different again, but better? A little less willing to please, perhaps, but Brompton too had her charm. She was certainly more demanding, and quite imaginative with food. Then there was her big double bed in the farmhouse. Blake had spent some unforgettable nights there, none of which really came to mind. He remembered her face, her body, some of the acts, but not really specific times. Aaah yes, there was that Sunday morning in front of the open fire. They had talked and fucked for hours on end. Nothing exceptional when taken in isolation, but pretty good stuff all in all. It gave him a warm feeling against the blackness, the emptiness, the cold.
Thinking back further was a mistake. As soon as he thought of Thompson, he thought of her bloodied face, her lifeless body. Again he tried to go past this to the good times they shared. He thought of her naked in his bunk, but then came gunfire outside, and again her body was ripped open flesh, her face a bloody unrecognizable mess. He picked up the machine gun at his side and starting shooting. He strode though the darkness naked, the machine gum spitting out and endless stream of death. One by one he saw the faces of everyone he had ever killed. The women, the men, the teenagers, the kids.... He kept shooting them, but they kept coming. Clawing at him with their bloody fingers. It was a mass of bodies now, all bleeding with lumps and chunks missing. He switched on the rocket attachment under the barrel of the gun, and let fire with that. Now they came at him with eyes dangling from the sockets, stumps of arms and legs splaying blood at him, fingers missing from severed hands, all still twitching and moving.
Blake spun his mind to get to somewhere else, anywhere else. Now he was a child with his mother, he had never known his father, killed when he was just a few months old. His mother was as he had last seen her, crippled and bleeding, dying before his eyes. He tried and tried to remember her before this, but the blood always returned. He thought of his Auntie, she was still alive, never even been shot. Blake had next of kin, he wasn't a faceless, nameless number like so many these days. He could see Maldina on the ComLink, telling her the news... "Blake, only dead now, he lasted well, he had a good innings, all things considered." Considering all the lives he took, perhaps his Auntie was right. He thought of Maldina, happy at his death, now the commander, a field promotion to Captain, hastily arranged by her father. He never did get her in bed, he always thought he would one day. He thought she would mellow with time, she hadn't, well not in the time they'd shared anyway. Not even to shed a tear for him. Wilde would cry, he could rely on that. And Brompton, maybe, a quick tear when no one was looking. Chantel? No that one had been cut too short, and by him. At least he had done the right thing, albeit after doing the wrong one earlier.
Sure he had killed, and he had loved, but had he really lived. Was that life, a full life. Surely it couldn't just be that? He had done so little, still only learning, still trying to get things right. No children, he had never coupled, not even talked about it seriously, and it had not happened by accident. He had wasted it all really, sad to say, but true. Great chances, and even greater mistakes. For all the lives he had taken, he had never created one. He could have coupled with Brompton or Wilde, got out while he was still ahead. One more great mistake to cap them all. He would never make a mistake again, not if he really was dead. Had he really ate, drank and fucked for the last time? Was it really all over? It seemed impossible, but increasingly inevitable. Blake would now have to settle himself down for eternity, and that's a long time without even a good book for company. Talbot called Maldina into the briefing room as soon as she arrived back from her nocturnal patrol in the PLA sector. He had been monitoring things from the Ops room, when he should have been running them. Maldina having countered most of the orders he had given. "Maldina, I understand that you are upset at what happened to Blake, and that we all want to get the raiders, but you have no right to interfere with my orders when I am the Duty Officer." Talbot was furious at how Maldina had taken over on his watch. |