Waves Of Mutilation by Sarah Jane Huntington

Author:Sarah Jane Huntington [Huntington, Sarah Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

UNDER THE EARTH

Alex walks into the small pub with great purpose. She is set to meet five carefully vetted individuals, chosen by herself. Many applied; people always do, and she remains selective in who she picks.

She said no to the mother of three. No to the single father and absolutely not to the young man who claimed he was a carer, looking after his elderly parents.

She makes brief yet essential eye contact with the solitary barman, Vince. He is busy cleaning glasses that are already perfectly spotless.

The pub carries a curious scent. Cheap perfume and forgotten, tired old fantasies.

She stops to smell the bitter air. It feels sorrowful inside the walls, stale, morose, and hollow.

Years of pain and regret have been etched onto the flowery wallpaper and spilled onto the familiar patterned carpet.

Middle-aged men and women sit at the small bar in relative silence, afraid to go home and face their partners or equally afraid to go home and face no one at all.

They each nurse a single drink with tobacco-stained fingertips. Perhaps they think of the past, a time when their lives felt full of endless possibilities instead of the constant doom they now face daily. Or might they think of the future and all the terror it is sure to hold.

No one turns to look at her. They have seen her many times before and couldn’t care less what she does or how she does it.

She glances once more at Vince and waits for him to nod his head. He does so quickly, a barely-there jerk. He behaves as if they are undercover spies swapping traitorous information or illicit lovers arranging to meet in code.

They are neither.

She is only borrowing the back room of the pub for fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes. It makes her enterprise feel more professional, meeting in a public place.

She walks across the old sticky carpet; her tough boots make kissing sounds as she steps. Dead inside eyes watch her without interest.

Nothing ever changes inside the pub, or the village, and such a thing works in her favor.

The backroom has a door labeled ‘THE SNUG.’

The sign is a lie. There is nothing snug or nice about the room. It is small, cold, damp, and has mold growing rapidly in each corner. Decay and rot are always present.

She knocks lightly on the door and plasters a smile on her face, it is time to appear confident. She has an important job to do, and she must do it right. She is dressed in a waterproof jacket, thick jeans, and heavy boots. A no-nonsense outfit.

The door swings open and she sees her five chosen people in flesh, blood, and bone. Not the pixelated images she knows.

Eager expressions peer at her. Five people willing and paying to put their complete trust in her.

She knows each one more than they could ever imagine she might. In the modern age, it is easy to find information about everyone. There are no secrets, not when the internet is involved, and people share their lives so freely.

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