The Shelter by James Everington

Author:James Everington [Everington, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: James Everington
Published: 2011-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

***

Alan let his body go limp and closed his eyes, letting the others support him as they pulled him away from the shelter and laid him on the parched ground. He could feel the sun on his face as he lay there; hear the faint buzzing of insects.

"Alan? Alan?" - Mark was shaking him. "Alan what the hell happened? It was only a joke, shutting you in, only a joke. What happened?"

I was just seeing things, Alan answered inside his own head, eyes still tightly shut. The words sounded hollow and paltry. Nevertheless he knew he should keep saying them to himself; what else could he say? He realised that all the kids books he'd read with titles like Strange But True! were comforting only because he hadn't believed them to be true at all, not the telekinesis or the Bermuda Triangle or the... ghosts. Comforting because they were just books.

"Alan, fucking hell, get up!" Tom said loudly. "Alan!"

Just let me lie here..., Alan thought. In the sun. Just let me...

Tom shook him with rough hands. It wasn't the shaking that caused Alan to open his eyes, to angrily wave Tom away, but the other boy's smell, his hot perspiration up close. He got up, shaking his head to rid it of a humming sound.

He looked around but saw no sign of Duncan.

"Alan?" Mark said.

He didn't answer, but turned quickly, to the shelter. The lid was up, like a waiting mouth. The concrete looked old and worn, ancient like a monument. There were spots of Tom's blood on there still, Alan knew, although he couldn't see them.

"What happened?" Mark said. "Alan?"

"Nothing I just... nothing," Alan said, his voice sounding tetchy and childlike. I was just seeing things, he thought again, stop asking me.

"Alan for fuck's sake!" Mark said angrily, and grabbed him by the arm. Alan looked down and saw Mark's hand gripping him tightly below the cuff of his t-shirt. It hurt and the skin was already going red. He looked up into the older boy's eyes, and saw how angry Mark was at his evasiveness. Saw the blazing, unreasonable anger that he'd felt himself, and seen in others ever since they'd come to the shelter.

He pulled away, and spoke reluctantly to the dusty ground.

"There's something down there."

"Something down there?" Mark said, looking puzzled. He glanced towards the shelter. "What? What's down there?"

Alan opened his mouth, but what could he say? Glowing people? Something worse that used the glowing people as bait? But if he didn't say anything the unnatural buzzing of this place would make Mark angry again, the blood rush to his head and...

Alan turned and was messily sick on the ground.

Tom sneered at him in disgust. "There's nothing down there. We saw."

"Then what happened to Alan?" Mark said, sounding irritated. Alan felt giddy in the summer heat and with the sudden nausea that had overtaken him, but he could sense the continuing anger in Mark's manner, now directed at Tom not him. Sense too how Tom was too sullen to notice.

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