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Adept Writer
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Scotland
Gender: Male
Posts: 914
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Standby
I had been reading for a long time before I noticed the silence. My name is Richard Lang, I’d been back in Freetown for two days now, taking a break from college. I put down my book and went to the window. A little girl wandered up and down the street, but nothing else was moving. I couldn’t hear the television, something that my mother always had on in the background even when she wasn’t watching it.
I went to the head of the stairs and listened. I could hear something now - white noise, the sound a T.V. makes when it’s not tuned to a station. I didn’t know much about T.V. because of my condition, but I knew that. I have epilepsy, you see. If I watch a flickering screen I have convulsions
I went down the stairs.
“Mom?”
I went to the living room where the noise was coming from and pushed open the door. my mother sat on the coach staring at the T.V.. I chanced a look at it, and saw nothing but snow.
“Mom? What are you doing?”
She didn’t move. I could see now that she wasn’t blinking. For one horrible second I thought she was dead, then I noticed the slow, metronome-like way her chest moved up and down.
I went to her, being careful not to look in the direction of the TV and shook her. She still didn’t move.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
I picked up the remote and put the T.V. on standby. She blinked several times and then screamed, making me start. She scrambled for the remote, tearing my hand with her fingernails until I cried out and dropped it. She picked it up, pressed the button, and settled back into a seating position.
“What’s going on?” I asked, talking to myself rather than the zombie in front of the television. “What the hell is going on?”
***
I didn’t stay in the room with her. I couldn’t switch the TV off, and that worried me. I went to the phone and tried to call an ambulance instead; but there was no answer on the other end. The phone rang, and rang, and rang.
***
I was beginning to understand as I left the house. The street was empty, except for the little girl who wandered up and down. I rang the neighbor’s doorbell, but I knew there would be no answer; I rang it because it was the only thing I could do. I put my finger to the buzzer and held it in place until the little girl came over to me and said:
“They’re all watching the tee-vee, mister. “
***
For two days me and the girl wandered around. Her name was Sarah. Her mother had put a timer on her TV, so that she could only watch twenty minutes worth a day, and that had saved her. She told me she didn’t really like TV anyway. There was plenty of food around, the meat would last a while if the electricity didn’t go off. An image had formed in my head with nightmare clarity: people coming home from work, finding their spouses, children, or friends silently watching television and joining them; yet others seeing the deserted streets switching on the news to see what’s going on; even kings and presidents communicated with each other on video screens. On the third day we met the blind man.
***
He had a yellow Labrador, the thing barked and barked. With the old man calling: “Who’s there? Is someone there?”
I told him to call his dog off, and he said: “Samson, sit!”
The dog did as told and stopped barking. Sarah started to pet it.
“Thank god,” the man said. His eyes were milky white, a little scary, but Sarah didn’t seem to mind. “I thought I’d never find anyone still responsive. My name’s Harold Finch.”
“Richard Lang,” I said.
***
That night the old man told me he used to be a computer programmer before he lost his sight. When I told him about the way my mother had screamed when I switched the TV off, he nodded.
“That’s because you interrupted the download,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair, Samson at his heel. “I’ve been thinking. The human mind is the greatest computer ever invented. It was only a matter of time before someone learned how to install a virus on it.”
“Your losing me,” I said. “I’ve got epilepsy, see. Can’t go near a TV or computer screen or anything that flickers.”
He nodded. “Well, I won’t bore you with detail then. I’ll just say that when you’re watching TV your downloading, when an advert for diet Pepsi comes on, you get thirsty. And so-on.”
I took this in as best as I could. “Do you think that someone brainwashed all those people, then?”
“Someone or something. They bounce of satellites, TV signals do. Maybe they picked up a Trojan horse program.”
We were in Harry’s house, none of us like the idea of staying in the same house as one of those vegetables; even Sarah shivered at that. But if we had been sharing a house with a vegetable then we would have known sooner.
***
It was Sarah who saw them first. She shook me awake.
“They’ve finished watching,” she said. “Look.”
She pointed to the window. I went feeling apprehensive. Samson had already started to bark and Harry was kicking up a fuss.
“What is it, Richard?” He kept saying. “What’s there?”
I stood in mute horror, watching. My mouth opened and closed on its own. The vegetables, the TV zombies were walking the streets--some in groups, some on solitary tasks--they all shared the same blank look of incomprehension. I watched as an old lady strolled by with a wooden plank , four teenage boys followed her holding a steel girder. Groups of vegetables were going in and out of houses, carrying materials or building tools.
“They’re getting ready to build something, I think,” I told Harry.
Sarah looked at me. “What are they building?”
I sighed. “I really don’t know.”
***
Two weeks went by. We walked freely, the Veggies not really bothering us, or even taking notice. We ate, we slept, we told stories. Sometimes Harry would tell some good ones, and Sarah would look forward to them; scary stories some of the time. Then Harry started to tell her tales of old horror movies: Village of the Damned, Night of the Living Dead, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Then Sarah got scared--and me too, not that I said anything--and Harry stopped.
And always in the background was noise. The sound of hammering, sawing, digging, and wielding. We made no effort to find out what they were doing at first, but curiosity is strong, if you don’t believe me then ask the cat.
Even then I think Harry had a clue - his extensive knowledge of fifties sci-fi and computer savvy gave him an edge I’m glad I did not posses. If I’d known what they were building then I think I would have gone mad.
***
In a few days the noise of construction stopped. Suddenly, as if someone had pressed a mute button. Whatever they were doing, they’d finished now. We left the house, that eery silence was back again, and it seemed worse now; as if the very air was alive with electric anticipation. We walked down unused roads, and past empty houses. We knew where they’d be: the center of town. That’s where the groups of scavengers had all seemed to head.
A quarter of a mile away we could hear it: the collective intake and outtake of air, thousands of people breathing in unison. When we came to the crowd, they seemed to sense our presence and move aside. They were all looking at the same thing. Some gigantic circular metal object, a giant metal ring on a wooden platform; several generators lay around the ring, all trailing wires. The vegetables stood around it in a rough circle
I described it to Harry and he nodded as if he’d seen it before.
“I don’t like it,” Sarah said.
I told her it was okay, it was just a sculpture; modern art. She didn’t buy it. She threw her arms around my waist and buried her head in my chest. “Lets go,” her muffled voice pleaded.
“What is it?” I asked Harry.
And at that moment it happened. A rip appeared in the middle of the ring. Blue power sprang from the rift and sent the Veggies closest to it flying in all directions; the rest stared on impassively. The rip widened revealing a darkness that seemed hungry and hateful.
“It’s their gateway,” he said.
The rip widened and engulfed the ring tearing it to shreds and sending a wind in their direction that smelled of alien things. The rancid and noxious smell’s of another world.
“We’ve got to do something!” I shouted at Harry.
Harry grinned. His dog was barking at the rift, shrieking, howling, and sending a yellowish spray all over Harry’s leg.
“It’s too late now,” Harry said.
The thing was close now, whatever it was. Some dark creature waiting for its food, or its revenge, or maybe its new home. And I knew there would be others, everywhere. There could be at least a hundred in each of the big cities--New York, London, Tokyo, Mexico City.
“Lets go,” I said. I picked up Sarah and held her in my arms. Harry followed, pulling his frantic dog after him.
We went home.
***
And here we wait. Harry wants to close the window now. That alien smell is filling the room and he can’t stand it (and neither could Samson, he barked and barked until Harry let him out, he continued to bark in the distance; then he yelped and there was no more barking.). My hands are trembling as I write this--it’s a good thing I’m typing, eh? Sarah’s okay, though. She doesn’t know what’s coming. Maybe she feels that slight tremble as the thing walks this way and that, but I doubt she knows what it is. Harry has a gun, he’s had it in his pocket all along. first I’ll shoot him, then Sarah, and then myself. It’s for the best.
May God rest our souls.
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