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    Futurescape
    Futurescape
    Futurescape
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    Futurescape

    By Vanessa Finaughty

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Science fiction meets the real world in this short story anthology, with stories guaranteed to spin your mind into an alternate reality. Are you ready?

    Lydia isn’t scared of much. She deals with walking corpses on a daily basis without flinching, yet her fear of cockroaches is crippling and may be her undoing. Then there’s Katrina, whose blood has been genetically altered without her consent, inexplicable murders on a newly colonised planet, alien invasion, galactic exploration and more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVanessa Finaughty
    Release dateJul 6, 2011
    ISBN9780620509060
    Futurescape
    Author

    Vanessa Finaughty

    Vanessa grew up in Cape Town, and still lives there with her husband of fifteen years, her baby daughter and plenty of furry, four-legged ‘children’. Her passion for the written word started her career as an editor and copywriter, and she part-ran a writers’ critique group for close on seven years. She's been writing ever since she learnt how, has always been an avid reader, and currently lives on coffee and cigarettes. Her interests include reading, photography, the supernatural, life's mysteries and martial arts, of which she has five years’ experience. Review copies of all Vanessa's books are available upon request, and fans are welcome to email her at shadowfire13@gmail.com - she loves to hear any type of feedback and answers all emails personally. *** Please note that Vanessa uses UK spelling and grammar, which is not always the same as US spelling and grammar.

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      Book preview

      Futurescape - Vanessa Finaughty

      FUTURESCAPE

      Vanessa Finaughty

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 Vanessa Finaughty

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Many thanks to fellow author, TC Southwell, for editing this short story anthology, and to Alexander Fenris for the cover text..

      FUTURESCAPE

      Vanessa Finaughty

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      PART ONE:

      SHORT STORIES

      Phobic

      The Sentients

      Jibak

      Natural Habitat

      Transfusion

      PART TWO:

      FLASH FICTION

      Mayday

      Lucid

      Survival Instinct

      Uninhabitable

      PART ONE

      SHORT STORIES

      Phobic

      Lydia clutched her head and willed the image in front of her to vanish. It didn’t, of course. She imagined squeezing her eyes shut to block out the ghastly sight, but the mere thought of not knowing what the creature would do next terrified her more than seeing it did.

      Why did things always have to get so complicated? She’d had perfect control over the situation until the disgusting thing had made its presence known. Honestly, couldn’t just one thing go right for a change?

      Lydia backed away, keeping her eyes fixed on the creature, and stopped when she reached the front door of her rented flat. She groped on the table for her cell phone, then, salvation in hand, realised there was nobody she could call for help.

      She’d hardly be able to explain the corpse seeping blood into the Persian rug that had come with the furnished apartment, the red liquid spilling over onto the otherwise clean white tiles. Lydia blinked perspiration from her eyes, cursing her almost non-existent eyebrows, and ran a hand through her short black hair. The cockroach scuttled over the corpse and froze when it reached the dead man’s chest, feelers twitching repulsively.

      Lydia groaned. Hot sweat greased the back of her neck as she resisted the urge to flee the two-bedroom flat. If she lost sight of the creature and it vanished, she would never be able to set foot in the place again. Since she couldn’t leave the gateway behind, she didn’t have much choice but to do the unthinkable: get near enough to the ungodly thing to kill it. A shudder ran up her spine, goose bumping her flawless skin. Why me? Why now?

      Lydia was prepared for a situation like this. Cans of DieRoach stood in strategic positions throughout the flat, and Lydia now reached for the can on the table to her right, eyes still fixed on the loathsome creature.

      She checked that the nozzle was facing in the right direction, placed a finger over it, took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the bruised feeling in her chest courtesy of her heart trying to pound its way out.

      Lydia glanced at her watch, then focussed on the roach again. If she didn’t get the corpse through the gateway within the next seven minutes, it would close and she wouldn’t be able to open it again for another fourteen days, and she didn’t want to deal with the unwelcome attention that whiffs of a decomposing corpse would draw.

      Anyone who died in a dimension they weren’t born in reanimated as… something else. Once the body had rotted to the point where it could no longer be manipulated, the soul disintegrated into nothing. In effect, by sending the body to Debris, a dimension where the laws of losing your soul were somewhat different, she was saving the soul. The thought of sleeping in the same building as a corpse that would reanimate at some point made her slightly ill. She shuddered again, this time in fear of the roach and the thought of waking up to a half-decomposed thing dripping maggots onto the duvet, or worse, her bare flesh.

      At least the roach had stopped moving, save for the constantly twitching feelers. Lydia was of the opinion that anything that could live for nine days without its head was no creation of God. Cockroaches were the result of some man-made experiment gone wrong, she figured.

      She took a tentative step towards the roach, still immobile atop the corpse. Focussed on the dreaded insect, it took a moment longer than it should have for her to realise that the corpse’s eyes were open. She could have sworn they had been closed when she had left it earlier to activate the gateway.

      His eyes widened in realisation and he dived to the floor in an attempt to avoid the knife about to pierce the soft skin under his chin. He was too slow for her finely honed reflexes, however, and had barely landed on all fours before she grasped his hair, pulled his head back and slit his throat, all in one fluid movement.

      She twisted the torso and shoved him onto his back, and then…

      Then what? Then the cockroach had scuttled out from under the couch, launched itself over the body, too close to her hands for her liking, and settled at the edge of the rug. Lydia had stumbled backwards with a squeal of terror, the fresh corpse all but forgotten in that instant.

      Lydia would have to go quite close to the corpse in order to hit the roach directly with the poison. If she didn’t get it spot on, the creature might launch itself at her, and that wouldn’t be good. She was sure she’d have a heart attack or stroke on the spot if a roach ever touched her. If she got too close to the corpse without taking the precautions that she was unable to take with the roach sitting there, things could get seriously ugly and the roach would be the least of her worries.

      The roach solved the problem by taking flight, heading directly towards her. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and backed into the table, ploughing her ribs into its corner. Reflexes kicked in and Lydia’s trigger-happy finger jammed the can nozzle down. The poison spray hit its target dead on, but it didn’t even slow the creature for a second.

      Lydia dashed into the guest toilet to her left, grabbed the hand towel from the rail and threw it at the roach, which now sat in the doorway. Lydia’s aim was never off, and the towel covered the roach. She sprang over it into the passage. Thinking quickly, she removed a boot – she was terrified that the creature would race up her leg or into her boot if she tried to step on it – and charged towards the towel as if her life depended on it. Which, actually, it might. Especially if the corpse had begun the reanimation process already.

      Just as she reached the towel, boot brandished, black feelers and a shiny brown shape scuttled out from under the cover. Lydia screeched and slammed the boot down on the insect. The roach narrowly avoided flipping onto its back and crawled away slowly. Lydia’s boot came down hard on the wounded creature, breaking it in half, and she almost passed out from fright when someone banged

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