Midnight From Beyond the Stars by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dark, fantasy, literary, author, paranormal, Fiction, horror, writer
Publisher: Silver Shamrock Publishing
Published: 2021-09-27T22:00:00+00:00

Realizing that everything had gone terribly wrong didn’t hit Miguel for five trouble-free minutes after passing through the door that the landsman had indicated. Nor did he have any reason to conclude that the landsman was the vilest of liars during those five minutes.

Culver trotted ahead of Miguel and Astrid, eager to reach the comforts of the transit centre, maybe anticipating a hot shower, followed by a tasty dinner. Above them, sky, consisting of black clouds, punctuated with smoky streaks of red. The ground appeared to be formed from crushed chalk: a pale, hard surface that yielded puffs of dust as their feet took them in the direction of a group of tall, flat-roofed buildings. Alongside the path, shallow gullies contained mist that was a dazzling orange in colour. This was a world of strange chemistry. And, no doubt, the elements brewed here prevented the decay of human flesh, nurturing legends about corpses that maybe, just maybe, are merely dozing within their graves.

Astrid said, “I work in a news office. Rumours abounded of the company running this place bribing politicians to prevent the next of kin from visiting the graves of their loved ones.” She glanced across at the sad shell of a sky ferry rusting down to its ribs on a stretch of cream-coloured sand. “The under investment is palpable, isn’t it?”

“Nobody ever checks if the company is running the place properly?”

“Nobody. If you ask me, the company ships dead folk out here and dumps them without ceremony, and without a shred of respect.”

Miguel shot her a grim smile. “Won’t we have some news to break when we get home?”

Astrid’s claim that the company unlawfully breached its contractual obligations to properly inter the deceased was powerfully reinforced when Miguel noticed hundreds of tombstones on the far side of a gulley. Lying flat, they littered desert sand, still partially wrapped in the plastic membrane that was designed to protect those grave markers when they were shipped out here. The tombstones were all moulded from black glass in a variety of shapes: simple oblongs, pyramids; a few were slender obelisks, echoing the design of Cleopatra’s Needle. They all bore the names of the deceased, together with the usual kind of epitaphs that had been around for at least five thousand years—Rest in Peace, In Loving Memory of—, Gone but not forgotten. Many had the likeness of the dead man or woman embedded into the black surface—the image possessing an animation system which revealed faces that constantly moved: smiling, nodding, eyes that were eternally ‘alive’ and brightly twinkling. No attempt had been made to erect the stones upright. They had simply been dumped there, possibly miles away from the graves they were intended to mark. Torn plastic membranes fluttered in the cold breeze. A mournful sight to be sure.

Before Miguel could point out the forlorn dumping ground for tombstones, Culver gave a shriek of dismay. “We’ve been tricked! There is no transit centre!”

Culver pointed at buildings that they believed would offer comfortable

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