A Dark Interval - Part One - Chapters 1 - 3

This is the first set of chapters for a dystopian novel called A Dark Interval.  After I wrote them I realized that they made up a kind of a prologue for the story, as they serve as an introduction for the three main characters and happen several days before the events of the story really begin to occur.  But instead of calling them a prologue, I called them Part One.  I also feel that the three chapters are all written in different styles from each other, but I'll let you be the judge of that.  And now I'm rambling, so I'll just let the story speak for itself.

(EDIT: Re-rating this 15+ for a scene in Chapter Three due to someone else's advice)

Part One – Awakening

Chapter One

The tepid seawater lapped gently against the sides of the canal, occasionally sloshing up onto the concrete.  Boats floated gently at their tethers, clacking against each other with the peaceful sound of wood-against wood.  Stars flickered sparingly in the sky above the dormant Wan Chai markets, every once in a while making their way out from under the dense blanket of clouds.

The streets were empty save for two shadows, each beginning its voyage at a different end of town.  One slipped through the spacious malls and restaurants that lined the island city’s promenade, sticking to the dark areas between lighted storefronts, careful to avoid the sweeping gaze of the cameras.  The other began in the slums, making its way through networks of decrepit houses and apartment complexes, following the ever-strengthening scent of mold and seawater that paved the pathway to the canals.  Every once in a while one of the shadows would stop at the smallest sound, only moving again when it was sure that the coast was clear.

It did not pay to be caught out on the streets of Wan Chai in the middle of the night.

Finally the two shadows reached the canals, each carefully snaking its way across narrow bridges and through the tiniest of passageways until they finally emerged on opposite walkways overlooking an ancient Chinese junk.

The elderly ship looked almost ready to collapse at the slightest breath of wind, but when the shadows crossed over the flimsy gangplanks and stepped onto the deck, the old wood didn’t even stir.

Once inside the junk’s dimly-lit cabin, the two shadows finally relaxed.  One dropped into one of the old plush chairs by one of the room’s small, open-air windows.  The other preferred to remain standing, its hand toying gently with one of the red lanterns that provided the cabin’s only light.

“I like the dragons,” the shadow in the chair said nonchalantly, sinking back into the comfy plush.  It was a man, and by the sound of his voice one who was on the older side of the spectrum.  His accent was noticeable but slight, unquestionably French.  “Those have… what do they call it… personality, don’t you think.”

“Sure, I like them,” the second shadow murmured, stroking the delicate paper sphere before dropping its hand to its side.  The second shadow was a man as well, but younger.  His voice was gruff and gravelly, the accent unmistakably American.  “Hong Kong has been good to me over the last few years.”

“Nothing to make you remember?” the first shadow questioned.

“Everything to help me forget,” the second replied.  His face was in shadow, hiding whatever expression it held from prying eyes.

“Have you forgotten?” the first shadow raised one of his salt-and-pepper eyebrows, and the second shook his head softly.

“No, I don’t think anything in the world could work that miracle.”

“I am glad then,” the Frenchman said softly.

“Glad about what?” the American looked up, and for the first time the Frenchman could see his eyes.  They were eerie, an anomaly of nature, twin amethysts burning a bright violet from within a pair of darkened caves.  “Glad that I can’t forget what they’ve taken from me?  Because I would give anything to be able to do that.”

“Glad that you have not forgotten the man you used to be.” the Frenchman said softly, his voice low and sharp.  “You were the best, Trace.  The best there ever was.”

“That was before,” the second shadow, Trace, whispered.  “That was before they killed me.  Before they killed my family.”

“They may have taken them from you,” the Frenchman said, hidden fire now incarnate in his words, “but they never needed to kill you.  That you have taken care of yourself.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“They took what was dearest to you, my friend,” the Frenchman intoned, “but they left you with your life.  And you have spent the last four years here, in the one place where they knew you would come, ruining what is left of your soul just as they knew you would.  It is not hard to foresee a man’s self-destruction, Trace.  Sometimes it is just a matter of giving him a bomb and watching as he lights the fuse.”

“What do you want, Benoit?” Trace growled, his voice dropping an octave.

“We have waited long enough,” the first shadow, Benoit, replied.  “It is time we strike back, that we show our clenched fist to the Vanguard and demonstrate that they do not rule all of us.”

“Benoit…” Trace trailed off, “maybe you are looking for the man I used to be.  But he’s not here anymore; he died, a long time ago.  And I’m perfectly satisfied with my self-destruction, if that’s what you call it.”

“Satisfied with cheap beer and call girls?” Benoit replied, “you are right.  That does not sound like the man I know.”

“He’s gone, Benoit,” Trace said, his voice carrying a strange sort of finality.  “Now it’s time you left too.”

The Frenchman stood, the chair slowly reforming from the dent he’d left in the fabric.  For a moment he was silent, his mouth set in a thin, hard line.  Then he headed for the door of the cabin, his footsteps the only sound on the junk’s dusty, wooden floor.  “People are dying in the streets, Trace,” he said.  “People are being executed, day in and day out, fathers, mothers, and children alike.  Someone needs to end this slaughter.”

“Not me,” Trace said firmly.  “Not me.”

Chapter Two

Halfway around the world, another shadow was carefully making its way through the darkened backstreets of downtown San Francisco.  The inner city was almost completely empty at this time of night, devoid of life save for the few sewer rats still scrounging for food and the random scavengers lying asleep or dead under their makeshift blankets and threadbare jackets.  There was nothing to light the rain-slickened concrete; any streetlamps had long since burned out or been carried away, and no stars shone in the overcast sky.  The shadow, this one a nameless fifteen year-old boy, used the darkness to his advantage.  He moved silently between each bit of cover, avoiding the mechanical eyes of the infrared alarm cameras and sensors watching for movement from every alcove and niche.

Nothing to it, the boy thought nonchalantly as he ducked behind an old wooden crate, just avoiding the sweeping gaze of a sensor.  He had been running this route every night for the past five years, a different container in his grip every time.  Work was tough to come by in the slums of San Francisco, and being a courier paid better than most of the other jobs a kid like him would be able to find.  Sometimes it was carrying drugs down into the city, opium grown on the secret farms on the hills of Palo Alto or cocaine shipped straight up from what had once been Mexico.  Other times it was weaponry, custom guns of every shape and size, special bullets containing everything from pure phosphorous to cyanide.  Occasionally it was a piece of new technology, microchips or drives stolen from the Vanguard laboratories on the islands in San Francisco Bay.  Tonight the package was a canister filled with a glowing red liquid, marked with a symbol that the boy knew very well.  Radioactive, he thought, sliding behind a pile of rubble left over from a recent demolition.  The camera panned the air overhead, its alarm silent.  Like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.  Like Los Angeles and San Diego.

Then he was off and flying through the night, a shadow once again, his train of thought broken as he dashed for the next spot of cover.  This time it was a pile of trash blocking the cameras, leftovers from a crappy one-star restaurant.  Nevertheless, he was tempted to stop and eat.  Later, he thought, after they pay you.  Then you can go to a real restaurant.

Suddenly he was off again, dashing out onto a crumbling overpass and leaping off of the edge.  The landing was soft, the muddy ground still slushy from the day’s rainstorm.  The sickly fragrance of rampant mold and mildew filled the air, accompanied by the putrid stink of rotting fruit.  And beneath it was something darker, the smell of a leaky coffin in a shallow grave.  The boy paused for a moment, sensing the danger floating in the air, so thick it was almost visible.

Then it passed, and a few seconds of recovery later he was running once again, into a darkened sewer pipe hidden beneath the bridge.  It was part of a larger network of pipes, left to disrepair long before the Vanguard had emerged from the woodwork.  Only couriers knew of their existence.

Or so he thought.

The boy’s feet pounded through the slushy innards of the tunnel, the reverberations of his footsteps bouncing off of the partitions of reinforcing metal inserted in the powdery concrete walls.  His breath was growing ragged; the air inside the sewer was doing its job.  The stench alone would have been enough; all of the chemicals carried into the pipes by the day’s storm only served to help weaken him more quickly.  The boy slowed to a walk, thinking that down here he would be safe.

Suddenly, halfway through the tunnel, a klaxon began to blare.  The boy tripped in surprise, landing face first in the muddy, chemical-laced runoff that was all that still flowed through these particular pipes.  Red alarm lights began to flash from places where there had definitely never before been lights.  A voice blasted down from the other end, amplified by the strength of a thousand echoes.  “This is the Midnight Police.  We know you’re in there.  Come out with your hands behind your head.”

The boy paused for a second, his mind quickly evaluating the best route.  However a small part of him was still in shock, wondering how they’d found out about his shortcut.

The traffickers must have been caught, he thought.

And once someone is caught by the Midnight Police, they don’t keep quiet.  Not for long.

“You don’t want us to have to come in there and look for you, do you?” the voice reminded, and the boy didn’t waste any more time.  He shot off down the nearest side path, turning corners and rushing down new passageways whenever his instincts instructed.  He knew the massive labyrinth under the city better than anyone else, and once he was deep enough inside he’d be as elusive as a ghost’s shadow.

Not even the Midnight Police would be able to catch him in there.

Chapter Three

Sara Vox pushed herself back against the hard, rocky side of the bluff, gasping for breath as the quickening wind stung her naked body.  Almost an hour had passed, but she could still feel the phantom touch of his hands on her body, pushing her to the ground and ripping off her clothes with swift, violent tugs.  Sixty minutes had gone by, and she could still feel his sickening weight falling on top of her, the absolute terror as she tried to scratch and claw her way out from underneath his body, and then the final sense of pure, utter hopelessness as she felt him—

Stop, her mind roared, but it received nothing but shivers from her numb, senseless body, stop thinking, stop remembering, just stop.

I can’t! another part of her fired back, I can’t stop!

Shut down! the first voice roared, shut down!

I can’t! the second voice repeated vehemently, I just can’t!  I—

“Hey, Sara,” she heard a voice come from the path behind her, the same voice she’d been waiting to hear for what seemed like thousands upon thousands of years.

“Hi, Robert,” she turned around, smiling softly.  He smiled back, a smile that she had waited so long to see pointed in her direction.  His hair was dark and ruffled, the image of the movie star his father had once been.  And his eyes, black and sparkling with the reflection of the crescent moon hanging overhead.

“Come out here often?” he asked, gesturing at the still, smooth waters of the Bay.

“Yeah, it’s a nice place to walk,” she said, inwardly berating herself.  Why couldn’t she think of something more interesting to say?

“I think so too,” he replied, his smile growing wider.  His eyes flickered behind her, to the rocky outcropping that hung out over the waters, curled in a semicircle like a granite wave.  Then they moved back to her, his gaze moving up and down her body.  He took in her tight white t-shirt and cutoff jeans, and a new light appeared in his eyes.  “But lately there’s just one thing I’ve been thinking about more than everything else.”

Sara felt a little flutter inside her stomach, knowing what was coming next.  What had to come next.

Stupid! she thought, tearing herself out of the past and back into the present, why couldn’t you see it?  Why couldn’t you see it?

It’s not that easy! the other voice retorted, I was caught up.  I… I wasn’t paying attention.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!  the first voice berated, you should have seen it!  It was there, written on his fucking face!  You should have freaking sensed it, just from the way he was looking at you.

Stop! the second voice protested meekly, just… please stop!

“What might that be?” she asked, trying to sound as innocent as she possibly could.

“You,” he whispered, a move so heavy-handed that it should have seemed strange at the time.  But she ignored it, and the butterflies in her chest multiplied tenfold.

“Well that’s a funny coincidence,” she whispered back, “because I’ve been thinking about you a whole lot too.”

His smile grew even wider, his teeth almost too white to be natural.  It was a dangerous smile, a smile of pure, utter greed.  But she ignored it as well, and allowed him to push her backwards towards the underside of the wavelike bluff.  But it was gentle.  Ever so gentle.

You idiot! the first voice continued to screech, and Sara felt as if her head were about to split straight down the center.  How could you not see?  How could you not see?

I wasn’t paying attention, the second voice seemed to be almost in tears, why can’t you see that?  It’s not my fault!  I was caught up!

It was your fault! the first voice screamed, it was all your fault, you stupid, oblivious bitch.  All.  Your.  Fault.

Please… the second voice whispered, please… just… stop yelling at me….

She first knew something was wrong when he pushed her against the underside of the bluff, the rough gravel biting into her back.  But even then she wrote it off, thinking that he was just eager.  That was all.  He was just eager.

Then gravity reversed and she was tumbling to the ground, the feeling of his pushing hands still imprinted on her skin.  She had a single second for the shock to register, and then his hands were back, greedily clawing at every inch of exposed skin.  She could hear his breathing, rough, strained, ragged, the sound of someone who’s last snatch of sanity had just snapped.  But in the shadows under the bluff she could only see his jittering silhouette, a beast of nightmare without a face.

“…You’re… mine…” his voice cut through the chorus of screams filling her brain, and she suddenly realized that her mouth was moving but no sound was coming out.  She took in a breath to yell, but a hand squeezed her mouth shut before she could let it out.

“You say… one word… and you’re dead… … … understand me?” his voice was sane, so incredibly sane that it made her want to laugh.  And at the same time it was so horrifyingly insane that it made her want to dissolve, to disappear into the sand beneath her.

“UNDERSTAND ME?!” he roared.

She could feel herself nodding, though she wasn’t sure how or why.

“Good,” his tone softened, and his hands moved under her clothes, reaching underneath her shirt, caressing and stroking her breasts with a gentleness altogether more terrifying than anything that had come before.  “I’m glad we can see eye to eye.  It’s so much less enjoyable when they fight.”

Then, in one swift motion, his hands ripped straight through her shirt and cast it out into the bay.  He did the same with her shorts, and the sudden chill sent more shivers racing up and down her spine.  She heard a rustle of fabric, so distant it could have been coming from mars.  He was still nothing but a shadow, but she could hear the smile in his voice.  “I like this part, don’t you?”

Sara keeled over on the sand, tears racing down her face and turning the sand dark with moisture.  The voices had quieted, but the fear was still there.  Paralysis had taken over her body, immobilizing every muscle except her pounding, pounding heart.

“I wish it would stop,” she whispered inaudibly, as the first tendrils of dawning light began to emanate from the sky over the bay, “I just want it to stop.”