Michael Robertson - New Reality - Truth

Retrieving two cans of Tango, Jake walked over to Tom and handed him one.

Guzzling the sweet, orange-flavored syrup so hard it burned his throat, Jake then belched half of it back up into his mouth. There was a slight kick of bile as he swallowed it back down again, but the taste was mostly unaffected.

Finishing the can, Jake tossed it on the floor, the wind sending it skittering over the rubble. After watching it roll away, Jake burped, careful to keep the liquid in his stomach this time. “I feel like I could drink a swimming pool dry.”

“Take it slow, Jake.”

“All right, Mum.”

Tom raised his hands. “I’m just saying. You’ll make yourself sick if you carry on drinking it that quickly.”

As if on cue, Jake’s stomach rumbled, and he had to take several breaths to keep the liquid down. Turning his back on Tom so he could hide his discomfort, he then returned to the vending machine.

When he came back, he had five chocolate bars fanned out in his right hand. “Pick a bar, any bar.”

The faintest smile cracked Tom’s face.

It was good to see his friend happy. Looking at the gloomy sky, which was getting darker by the minute, the glowing red letters on the phallic symbol of their oppressive master standing prominent on the horizon, Jake scratched his head and searched the floor. “It’ll be night soon. We may as well lie down here until morning.”

While opening a chocolate bar, Tom glanced around. “I’ll only do it if we take shifts on guard. One of us should always be awake from now on.”

“Okay, I understand. Now tell me what’s been following us.”

The bags on Tom’s long face pulled it to the ground as he stared at his friend. He said nothing.

Shaking his head, Jake stretched his arms up in an attempt to force the lethargy from his aching body. “You look like you need it more, Tom. You sleep first.”

They were stopping for the evening. Should she seize the opportunity? She could end it all now. It had to happen sooner or later. If not tonight, how long could she drag it out?

She watched them eat their chocolate and drink more fizzy drinks. She watched Tom lie down and fall asleep almost instantly. Rubbing her sore eyes, she watched Jake pace up and down.

She watched him stand still.

He sat down.

Once he was horizontal, his eyes slowly shut.

Her voice came out as a soft hiss. “Sweet dreams, Jake. Sweet dreams.”

Jake’s eyes flashed open. Shit! How long had he been asleep? Lifting his head from its awkward position, a crick in his neck stabbing into the bottom of his skull, he drew a sharp breath as he looked over at his friend. Tom was still snoozing. Good.

It was as dark, dusty, and desolate, as it had been when he’d passed out. Relaxing his shoulders, he smiled to himself. Nothing had happened. Thank God.

Pushing himself upright, his shoulders burning from the effort, Jake rolled them in large circles. It did little to ease his discomfort.

The concrete slab he’d slept on had made his back so cold his spine had turned to ice. Hugging himself tightly, Jake sat there and shivered.

With the wind smashing into his face and the pattering of grit hitting the lenses on his glasses, Jake squinted to try and make out his surroundings. On the best of days, it was hard to see more than about fifty meters ahead. At nighttime, exhausted, and with a sugar-fueled headache cramping his face, Jake was virtually blind. But he’d promised Tom that he’d act as look out. All he could do was make sure he didn’t fall asleep again.

Swallowing a couple of times, Jake grimaced at the taste. The high-sugar diet and lack of dental hygiene left a layer of fur on his tongue. It tasted like bile, and no amount of running it across his teeth could banish it.

As Jake became more lucid, he started to feel his pounding heart. It was on the edge of a panic attack, and worms of anxiety writhed in his guts. Why did he feel like this?

Then he heard it.

Gasping, he spun around.

It was close, but where?

A raspy, rattling wheeze breathed in his ear. Turning sharply, Jake still couldn’t see a thing. Where was it?

He looked over at Tom. He was still asleep.

Then he heard a deep exhalation. A satisfied, gravelly groan. Almost post-coital.

Where was it?

What was it?

With his skin turning to gooseflesh, Jake remained rooted to the spot, shaking where he sat.

When the rubble shifted a few meters away, he snapped his legs back and pulled them beneath him as if he were about to lose them. The disturbance, a Mohawk of raised rubble, made a beeline for him like a shark’s fin through water. Seconds before collision, it vanished.

Scanning around, Jake’s heart galloped. What if another sinkhole opened up? What would he do? Should he wake Tom?

A puff behind him made him spin around to see an explosion of dust shoot from the ground.

Was it another one? One was bad enough.

Focusing on his breathing, his heart ready to explode, Jake remained sat on the flat lump of concrete.

The movement around him stopped, but Jake could still hear it. It was scrabbling beneath where he sat.

Looking down, Jake’s stomach sank. He was sat on a headstone. No wonder it was the flattest surface in the vicinity. Running a shaking hand over its cold surface, he felt the engraved legend to someone passed. It was too dark to read it.

Keeping his palm on the inscription, he then felt a vibration on the other side, a prolonged scratching like someone dragging a trowel along it. Jake snapped his hand away.

With the slow dry rasp running through the slab, Jake heard the slapping of salivating jaws. His pulse rocketed.

Frozen to the spot, panic swelling in his chest, Jake held his breath for the length of every scratch. They seemed to last forever as they dragged along the underside of the concrete.

When Tom let out a loud snort in his sleep, Jake yelped.

The sound beneath him stopped.

Maybe it had gone. Maybe it was as scared as him as he was of it. Maybe—

Scraaaaaaaaaaatch!

It was impossible to guess how much time had passed, but if Jake were to give it a go, he’d say it had been about twenty minutes since the last scratch. Maybe he was alone again. Maybe he could finally move.

Looking across, he saw Tom was still sleeping. At least he’d missed the ordeal. It made no sense for him to have any more fear in his heart. There was currently enough in Jake’s for the both of them.

Jake’s bladder ached. He had to get up. Looking around, he chewed his bottom lip. It was like being a child all over again. He used to wake in the middle of the night, desperate for a wee, but refused to get up because of the monster waiting for him beneath the bed. The second his small bare foot touched the carpet, it would grab his ankle and rip him under. It would drag him into the rubble and feast on him with frenzied ferocity.

But Jake wasn’t going to piss the bed this time. Just the thought of Tom waking made him nervous. To see his friend giving him the same worried look that he’d received from his parents every morning. To utter the same words—‘Isn’t he a bit too old to piss the bed now?’ Or ‘we’ll have to get him a rubber mattress.’ They’d speak as if he wasn’t there—as if he had no feelings.

Getting to his feet, fatigue shaking his weak legs, the ache from his existing injuries threatening to throw him back down to the floor, Jake turned his back to the wind. Clumsily freeing his penis from his trousers, he urinated with the flow of the gale. The hot liquid burned as it left his bladder, dehydration turning his piss thick. It felt like passing honey.