Fear Of Darkness
A serial novel by Joe Lake.
(So far: Julie’s husband has had an accident, after which he disappears. At the police station the next morning, in the two-way mirror over the counter, Julie sees the door open by itself and when she looks, a young couple enter. “Vampires,” she thinks but is told that it is a trick of the light. Next, the campervan is back at Cooee and she wakes to find her husband in bed with her and notices two marks on her neck.)
She wonders about the two scab marks because they are itching. Just then the mobile phone rings. She picks it up.
“Good morning, I hope you slept well,” says an amicable deep male voice. “You’ll have to wear dark glasses in future. I also left some strong sunscreen lotion on your table in the kitchen. You must put that on. It’s not easy to be immortal. I’ll see you both this evening. In the meantime, continue your lives as usual but don’t move out of Cooee for now. Again, I say, welcome.”
Julie had no chance to answer.
Bob was putting the kettle on. “Who was that?”
“Someone who said that we are immortal and to put sunscreen on, and wear dark glasses.
“Immortal? I wish! It would be nice to live forever. The fellow must be mad. Where did you meet him?”
“He seems to know me.”
“You stay in bed. I’ll make the breakfast. French toast? Of course, that’s your favourite. That reminds me, we’ll have to fill up the gas bottles.”
Julie didn’t reply at first, then said, “Do you remember anything of the last two days? My eyes have become unfocused and everything before me is floating as if I were a bird hovering on the ceiling of the van. I’ve had this experience in dreams when I was young. I used to fly over landscapes like a bird. I’d have my arms outstretched as if they were wings and I could feel them flapping, gentle and powerful. I read that flying signifies a sexual experience but I never believed it. Perhaps seeing the two people at the police station who had no mirror image was a dream and I’m still in it?”
“Look at the facts, dear,” Bob said, “I’m making French toast. That’s not a dream, more like a nightmare even though I’m the best French toast maker in this caravan...”
“You are, or were, especially when you don’t fry them to a crisp and make the sunny-side-up egg into inedible rubber,” Julie countered.
“You must have eaten something that upset your stomach, that’s why you have these fantasies about invisible people.”
Julie kept her silence, then pondered, “All the world’s an illusion. We may even be holograms projected from somewhere outside the universe, I heard once.”
“I wish we were immortal,” Bob said, “but I wouldn’t like to pay a price for it, though.”
(To be continued next month.)
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