The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection Read online

  Morgan’s shooting arm trembled.

  “Stop talking to me like I’m one of your fucking kids Terri,” he said. “I’m not one of your fucking kids. I’m the man with the gun and you’re still tied up. Remember?”

  “It’s a puzzle isn’t it?” Terri said. “One hundred people and a gathering of silence seekers in the quiet lands. Well? Who would organise such a thing?”

  Morgan gasped. “How the hell would I know?”

  “Look at their faces,” Terri said in that cool, crisp voice. She sounded like an actress now, reading something coldly off a script. “You watch the news in prison don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  A long pause.

  “Then you’ve heard of Silentia.”

  Morgan almost dropped the gun on the floor. He blinked fast, like something had gotten into his eyes.

  “Silentia,” he said.

  He looked outside.

  “Oh Mary Mother of God.”

  On the other side of the room, Terri and the girls were watching him.

  “Are you alright?” Terri said. “Do you understand what you’ve done now? Do you realise what a mistake it was to come here?”

  Morgan shook his head. “You’re Silentia?”

  “You got there in the end,” Terri said. “Well done.”

  “But Silentia are terrorists,” Morgan said. “You? You’re…YOU’RE in Silentia? YOU? Reggie Ward up there? Fern and Ellie? You’re all terrorists?”

  It was Ellie who spoke.

  “We’re not terrorists,” she said. “That’s society’s misinterpretation. And as Marjory Baker says, it’s not an objective truth. It’s a perception, and there’s a big difference between objective truth and perception.”

  Morgan’s jaw nearly fell off.

  “What are you talking about kid?” he said. “Good for you. Sounds like Mummy and Daddy and Marjory whoever the fuck did a good job of brainwashing you. Do you even understand what Silentia is Ellie? What it really is? It’s a bunch of mass murderers with extremist views killing innocent people. Blowing them up. Shooting them in cold blood. You’re in with a squad of killers here Ellie. These people do far worse than I could ever dream of. What do you say Fern?”

  Fern was staring at her feet. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  Morgan leaned his back against the wall.

  “I can’t get over this,” he said. “I’ll never get over this. I thought you guys were the Waltons. Turns out you’re the fucking Manson family.”

  Terri held up her wrists.

  “Untie us,” she said. “We’ll work something out. You have my word Morgan.”

  “Your word?” Morgan said. “The word of a terrorist? That’s reassuring.”

  Slowly, he walked over to the couch.

  “Let me remind you of something ladies,” Morgan said. “Something you seem to have forgotten in all this excitement. I’m the man with the gun, which means I’m still in charge of this situation okay? Fuck Silentia. Now I’ve got four things in here those silence huggers want. Doesn’t seem like they want to risk losing you by storming the house either. How do I know that? Because they’re still standing out there in the garden. Whoever you are, you’re too valuable to risk. That’s right isn’t it?”

  “It’s over Morgan,” Terri said. “Accept it and it’ll be easier.”

  Morgan pressed the Glock against Terri’s white neck. It went up and down like a caress.

  “I’ve got hostages,” he said. “In prison I used to take screws hostage so trust me when I say, this is nothing new for me.”

  He pulled Ellie to her feet and put the gun to her head. Then he dragged her over to the window.

  “Nothing personal Ellie,” he whispered. “For what it’s worth you’re the best keyboard player I ever saw live.”

  Outside, Silentia were flexing their muscles. In Morgan’s brief absence they’d brought out a small arsenal of weapons. Morgan whistled in appreciation at the abundance of machine guns, shotguns, rifles and handguns on display.

  All pointing at the house.

  Morgan gently pushed Ellie’s head forward.

  At the sight of Ellie with a pistol to her head, one of the terrorists, a short, bald-headed man with gorilla shoulders, stormed towards the house. His face burned bright red with outrage.

  “You cowardly son of a…”

  “Stay right there you baldy bastard,” Morgan yelled. “Or the girl gets it.”

  The bearded man, who Morgan assumed was the same Joseph that Terri had called out to, stepped forward. He shot a hand out, blocking the bald man’s advance.

  They exchanged tense looks. The bald man slowly backed off, although the fire in his eyes didn’t go out.

  “That’s right,” Morgan said. “Now listen up Silentia. You do what I say and your friends here get to live and you can all go off and blow up some more buildings together. Piss me off and they’re worm food. First things first – I know you’ve got people scouting out the back garden area. They’re not as light on their feet as they think they are. Whoever it is, call them back now because if I hear anyone trying to open the back door I swear to God, I’ll splatter little Ellie’s brains all over the driveway. And that’s just for starters.”

  Ellie trembled in Morgan’s vice-like grip.

  “Don’t worry kid,” he whispered. “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

  Joseph stood beside the BMW, staring at Morgan with cold eyes. He raised a hand, signalling to a dark-skinned woman standing behind him. The woman, who was at least six feet tall with a shaven head, came over and Joseph whispered in her ear. The woman nodded and then walked slowly around to the back of the house, her hands up in the air, eyes locked on Morgan.

  “Hurry it up beautiful,” Morgan said, watching her go.

  She returned about thirty seconds later with a skinny, blonde-haired teenage girl at her side. The girl scowled at Morgan.

  “If you really want to be silent,” he said, calling out to the girl, “then you should take your shoes off and creep around barefoot. Just a thought darling.”

  The girl gave him the finger.

  “Excellent,” Morgan said. “Now I want you good people to start making some room on that driveway out there. Move some of those cars because I’m shipping out and I’m taking the Wards’ SUV and at least one hostage with me. Don’t worry, I’ll drop the hostage off when I’m certain no one’s following me. That’s the deal folks – it’s very simple. I go, you stay. Take it or watch your comrades die one at a time.”

  There was no immediate response. Nothing but a sea of blank faces staring at the house.

  “It’s a tough one,” Morgan said. “Tell you what. I’ll give you lovely people two minutes to think it over starting from now.”

  He pulled back the curtains and the room dimmed to a dour chalk grey. Morgan released Ellie and she hurried back over to the couch, taking her place alongside her mother and sister.

  “Don’t ever put a gun to my daughter’s head again,” Terri said in a quiet voice. “If you do I’ll kill you myself.”

  Morgan met her fierce stare across the room.

  “You better hope your friends play it smart then,” he said. “They better start moving those cars. Now we’ll talk later about who’s going to be my travelling companion. But I’m willing to leave the girls out of that discussion.”

  “I’ll do it,” Fern said. “I’ll go if you need….”

  “No you won’t,” Terri said, jumping in. “Absolutely not.”

  “That’s right Fern,” Morgan said. “No offence pal, but I think your mum or dad will be making that trip.”

  He glanced at the clock on the wall.

  “Decision time.”

  Morgan walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back a few inches. Rays of sunlight trickled into the room. Outside the terrorists were still gathered around Joseph, deep in discussion.

  Was Joseph the leader of Silentia? If so, this was quite the honour. The head honcho
was up there with the most wanted criminals in the world. It was the one thing that everyone in law enforcement was dying to know – who was the brains behind Silentia?

  Morgan tapped the gun off the window.

  “Me again,” he said. “Well folks? What’s it…”

  He stopped.

  A sudden noise at his back. It was the light pitter-patter of soft feet skipping across the floor.

  A thudding sensation.

  The world turned upside down.

  Billions of pinprick stars danced in front of Morgan’s eyes, followed by a strange feeling of lightness.

  He turned around. Ellie was standing at his back, a deranged expression on her youthful face. She held something in her hands.

  It was the ugly crystal ornament. The one Morgan had seen sitting on the coffee table.

  Something warm spilled down his forehead.

  “Aaaaaagh.”

  Ellie leapt forward, fearless and lightning fast. With both hands she hit him, striking Morgan on the skull with the wooden base of the ornament. Fear and rage had seemingly given Ellie superhuman strength.

  Morgan staggered around like Frankenstein’s monster. Ellie dropped the crystal and Morgan chased after her, one hand outstretched, his fingers grasping at thin air. He could hear other people shouting. Were they in the room too? Their voices were thick and slow and distorted.

  Ellie darted to the far corner, to the couch, then back to the window again. Morgan pursued in a daze. Ellie dropped to a crouch near the window and grabbed something off the floor.

  When she straightened back up she was pointing the Glock at Morgan.

  Morgan looked at his blurry right hand in surprise. It was empty. Funny, he didn’t even remember letting go of the gun.

  He dropped to his knees.

  When he looked up again, Ellie was standing over him. Morgan strained his eyes, pushing past the cloud of purple haze engulfing his vision.

  Ellie Ward held the Glock like a pro, fingers locked tight around the rubber grip, no hint of fear.

  Somebody walked up behind her. The man with the beard.

  Joseph.

  Oh shit, Morgan thought.

  Joseph took the gun off Ellie. Without saying anything he brought the grip down hard on Morgan’s head. The first blow knocked Morgan off balance and put him flat on his back. It took a few more hits before he blacked out.

  Before he lost consciousness, Morgan heard something. Somebody was standing directly over him, laughing.

  He was just about able to look up.

  It was Ellie.

  Marjory whoever the fuck would be so proud.

  Chapter 9

  Reggie sat on the toilet seat, his back against the cistern. He was staring at the door. It felt like he was trapped inside a sauna. He had no idea how long he’d been in this sweltering bathroom. Felt like hours.

  His sweater clung to his skin.

  Things were escalating downstairs. There were other voices inside the house now – voices that didn’t belong to either Morgan or his wife and daughters. Sounded like a lot of people in the farmhouse now. Just minutes earlier Reggie had heard footsteps charging through the hallway, storming into the living room. More voices. Shouting. Thumping. Banging.

  It was all happening so fast.

  But who was it? Who was down there?

  It was too early for their visitors.

  Reggie winced. It felt like he had elephantiasis of the hands after all the pounding he’d done on the door. And his feet weren’t doing much better. Still, a little physical pain was the least of his worries now.

  The police were in the house. And that meant it was the end.

  “Stay calm,” he told himself. “Calm.”

  Just the thought of a police presence was enough to make Reggie break out in a cold sweat. Here of all places, and after so many years. At the same time, a strange calm drifted slowly across his mind.

  Reggie had always known this day might come.

  The farmhouse, isolated and remote, had been the perfect base for the Wards’ so-called family getaways. A group of silence huggers flocking to the quiet lands wasn’t going to arouse any suspicion. And it was always the same drill – once Reggie and the family were settled in the old house, the key players in Silentia would travel north, always from separate starting points and always in small groups of no more than two or three cars.

  The meetings were brief. Running over the little things one last time with the sharpest minds in the organisation, preventing potentially big and costly mistakes from occurring.

  This process had never failed, so far.

  Reggie was well aware that there were a large number of conspiracy theorists who didn’t think Silentia even existed. They thought the attacks were the work of the government or the noise industries or both, going to extremes to stir up anti-silence hugger fever. This fever in turn brought the masses flocking to industry products as people tried to distance themselves further from the poor, mad silence-loving freaks who’d gone too far to defend a dying lifestyle.

  All that conspiracy nonsense suited Reggie just fine. It was all noise and distraction. The more they talked the further away they drifted from the truth. The people had created a smokescreen and that smokescreen had served Silentia well, allowing the organisation to operate in the shadows, to embody the last stand against the noise industries.

  But now Reggie’s luck had run out.

  This was the raid he’d hoped to avoid. How did it happen? The police must have been notified about the crash, then come looking for Morgan and in the process of scouring the quiet lands, they’d discovered Silentia’s secret hideaway.

  Morgan, that bastard.

  He’d ruined everything.

  Reggie grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off his face. The heat was making him feel sick, or was it something else? His mind turned like a spinning wheel. Was Morgan really a con? Or was he part of something bigger? What if this so-called prison escape was all part of some elaborate sting to bring down Silentia?

  “No,” Reggie said. He couldn’t believe it.

  The man who’d tortured his family was a simple brute. A knuckle-dragger cursed with the same addiction as ninety-nine percent of the global population. Given the chance, Morgan would have taken the phone and car and disappeared out of the Wards’ lives forever. It was Reggie’s fault. But he had to smash Fern’s phone beyond all hope of repair. What if Fern had something potentially incriminating on her phone? Pictures? Information? Reggie doubted his daughter would be so careless but he couldn’t take the chance of letting an outsider take the phone away.

  He stood up slowly.

  Where were they all? Why hadn’t they come to put him in cuffs yet? Terri and the girls were surely trying to protect him by telling the police that there was no one else in the house with them. They’d hope that Reggie would take the opportunity to run.

  If only.

  He peered out the window onto the back garden.

  Nothing. Where were they?

  He sat down on the toilet seat again, staring at the door. The old door, its rich brown colour having faded to reddish-orange, was a shadow of its former glory. There were scrapes and scratches all over it, some dating back half a century at least. Reggie’s eyes landed on a series of names and numbers carved into the wood where he and Terri had measured Fern and Ellie’s height over the first decade or so of their life.

  Reggie reached over and his fingers scraped the first markings. He shook his head, unable to believe that his kids had ever been that small.

  He sat up straight.

  Finally.

  It was the old staircase groaning again, signalling that somebody was coming up.

  Reggie stood up and opened the mirrored door of the glass cabinet above the sink. He scooped up his razor from the middle shelf and twisted the handle, exposing the gleaming blade inside. With sweat dripping down his face, Reggie used his forefinger and thumb to remove the razor from the head.

  A noise.


  He glanced at the door.

  Somebody was jiggling with the key in the lock.

  Reggie wiped the sweat away. Then with a steady hand, he pressed the razor blade against his left wrist. The sharp edge of the blade pricked his skin.

  He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. In…and…out. His heart began to slow down. Reggie thought about his wife, his children. Then he wondered what the news headlines would say about him. Say about all this.

  How would people remember him?

  He was ready. Reggie stared defiantly at the door, waiting for them to kick it open. The sweat was flowing again. The endless heat poured out of the vent.

  And when they’d kicked the door open he’d give them a good look at the man they’d wanted for so long.

  Then he’d make the final cut.

  All this, Reggie Ward could still control.

  Chapter 10

  Morgan blinked hard. Light flickered before his eyes, guiding him back towards consciousness.

  “Ugggh…”

  There was a stampede of buffalo inside his head and the big bastards showed no sign of slowing down. Morgan tried to lift a hand to locate the precise source of discomfort on his skull. That was impossible. His hands were tied behind his back. There were other knots too, around his waist and ankles, binding him to a chair.

  He took a look around the room.

  Everything was fuzzy. Dark shadows stood before him. A low-pitched hum drifted across the room, breaking off into a variety of tones.

  No.

  It wasn’t a hum. These were voices, each one a sledgehammer taking potshots at Morgan’s sore head.

  “He’s awake,” a man’s voice said.

  “Is the boss down yet?” someone else asked.

  “On his way.”

  One of the shadows came closer. Morgan narrowed his eyes, squinting in a desperate bid to focus.