Graeme Reynolds was born in England in 1971. Over the years, he has been an electronic engineer in the Royal Airforce, worked with special needs children and been a teenage mutant ninja turtle (don’t ask). He started writing in 2008, and has had over thirty short stories published in various ezines and anthologies before the publication of his first novel, High Moor, in 2011. When he is not breaking computers for money, he hides out in deepest, darkest Swindon and dreams up new ways to give people nightmares. Links:
https://www.graemereynolds.com https://www.horrifictales.co.uk
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Bleeds-Into-Dawn-Supernatural-ebook/dp/B0D7ZXGWVJ
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215227892-night-bleeds-into-dawn
--------------------------------------------------------------
I stood on a hard tarmac courtyard peering into the mist. Things moved out there in the swirling shadows, dancing in the periphery of the white blanket, masking the dark shapes hidden in its depths. Fear threatened to root me to the spot. I could feel it weighing down my legs but, nevertheless, I found myself drawn into the chill, hazy embrace, powerless to resist.
A tall, imposing building with ivy spidering across a red-brick clock tower emerged from the mist. Though I’d never been there before, I recognised it at once: King’s College, site of the massacre. As I drew near the building, I saw faces pressed against the decaying window frames – dozens of them – pushing against the glass in a futile attempt to escape, their screams deadened. I turned, unable to look, but wherever I looked, the sight remained the same. The window. The screaming faces.
My footsteps echoed around the courtyard but were strangely muted, as if even the echoes were hesitant at giving themselves away. I could understand that. I wanted nothing more than to find a warm, dark hole to curl up and hide in. However, my legs continued to operate without volition, and soon, the building was swallowed up by the fog once more. I left the courtyard and stepped onto spongy, colourless grass as more shadows emerged from the billowing mist. People this time. They stood motionless with their arms by their sides neither fearful nor aggressive. I knew them. Every single one. They were people that I’d known throughout the course of my life, frozen in time like some grotesque tableau. My parents were both long dead, yet here they stood. My brother, whom I’d not seen or spoken to since my father’s funeral. Former lovers and friends I’d not thought about for years. Old playmates immortalised as the children they were rather than the adults they became. Colleagues from the police service. Chris and Billie, Dave and Jean from The Dolphin. And Sarah, of course, my ex-wife. And standing beside her, our daughter Stephanie, whom I’d not been allowed to see or speak to for the past three years. I grabbed her hand and held the cold flesh tight.
“Steph, love. Please wake up.” But my daughter didn’t move. Showed no sign of recognition or life. I let go of her hand and moved to her mother, speaking softly, begging for some kind of response. There was nothing. Nothing but the sweet stench of decay. I watched in horror as their flesh tightened on their frames, their milky eyes receded into sockets, and I wept freely.
I reached the centre of the human forest, and I noticed something strange – or stranger. Someone I had never met before, though I knew her face: Alice Wells. Her presence here seemed like a violation of some kind. Every other person here had been close to me at some point. I’d loved all of them one way or another, but not Alice. She wasn’t really even a client, just someone whom I was investigating as part of a case. She didn’t belong here. Nevertheless, I repeated my actions, trying to make a connection, to shake her out of this strange catatonia. I took her cold hands in mine and said, “Please! You have to wake up.”
And she did.
Her head snapped around to look at me, and something shone in the dark orbits where her eyes should have been. A silver pinprick of malice and hunger. It glinted, then spread out from Alice like a wave, washing over the bodies of my friends, my family. And, as one, they turned their heads to face me.
I screamed.
And woke.
I was lying face down on my desk. The skanky laptop was still open, fan whirring away, and my “World’s Best Dad” mug lay in pieces on the floor beside me. My clothes were soaked in sweat, clinging to my body like a second skin. I tried to push myself into a sitting position and cried out as my cramped muscles objected.
It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened or understand the source of my nightmare, but that didn’t make it any less affecting.
I forced myself to my feet and swept the blackout curtain aside, wincing at the bright sunlight. I let the curtain fall back with a grunt and checked my watch. It was almost nine a.m.
I stripped out of my stinking clothes and stayed in the shower until I’d used up all the hot water. I felt stained, as if the images my brain had conjured had corrupted me on some fundamental level. I stood there shivering for some minutes before I was able to shake off the feeling and get myself ready. I needed to look my best today. It was time to go visit an old friend.
(C) Graeme Reynolds 2024