The Man With The Dream

A fiction by Adam Jezard. A mad billionaire, a dream of immortality and a nightmare for the human race hide behind the walls of an English country house.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

1 Night fall

I stopped in surprise at the top of the hill. It was early summer and dusk was starting to fall with the almost mystic air that this season brings. However, the scene was leant an even more unreal air by a large, castle-like house that grew imposingly before me with every step I took.

At last I reached the peak and before me stood a large off-white wall, more Italianate or Spanish in appearance than English. Studded into the wall here and there were iron cross shapes, presumably something to do with its brick superstructure, covered in white plater. Behind the wall I could see there was a large house, manorly, castle like, eerily imposing in the rapidly fading daylight. A bell tower topped the roof, rising to a point above an elongated triangle of brick, somehow more like a spaghetti western film set designers’ impression of a monastery than an English manor house.

As I looked, a bat fluttered out of the trees and over the bell tower. The impression of a spaghetti western set was immediately replaced by the that of a giallo - an Italian genre of gory horror story inspired by Gothic literature.

Ignoring the chill going down my spine, I paused to take a photo on my phone and then walked along the wall trying to get more of an impression of size of the house and lands behind it, but the wall was too high to see over. I eventually came to a high wooden gate, the brown varnish tinctured almost blood red by the lowering light.

Unable to explain my feeling of dread at the appearance of the house, I retraced my steps to the inn further down the hill where I had taken a room for the night. Clearly the manor had been on the hillside a long time, probably at least 100 years or more, but the houses below it predated the manor by three or more centuries, which made it the new kid on the block. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about the house that had dampened my spirits when I had gone for that late stroll in a happy frame of mind.

It was a short walk back to the inn, but I was out of breath when I reached it, the steepness of the climb in both directions providing valuable exercise to a man of advancing years.

I paused outside the door of the inn. Once perhaps the laughter of villagers enjoying an ale after a hard day in the fields would have once greeted me. Before the advent of radio and television the locals may have gathered to look over the newspapers brought up from the town and discuss the latest gossip. Here farm boys, like Luke Skywalker, dreamed of escape from rural servitude and would have rallied to call of Wellington, or Kitchener, or Churchill and, in that youthful lust for life, would have shed their blood on the corner of some foreign field that would be forever England. The inn door screeched on its hinges as I went in and I put such melancholy thoughts behind me.

My wife and I were, we had been told on arrival, the only guests and I think the landlady was welcome of our sudden intrusion. The stopover had been an impromptu decision. During the whole of a bright, sunny, bird song-filled day in the spring of the year, when the clouds had been mercifully few in the heavens, we had been passing alone, by motorcar, through a singularly attractive tract of country when at length we found ourselves, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the suddenly spectacular hillside with a commanding view over the west country. Or something not very like Edgar Allan Poe.

We’d been visiting a sick relative, which possibly had coloured my perceptions of the day as night wore on as the illness was an incurable one. The sudden reddening sunlight at the end of the day, and the desire for a good bed and a slow potter home via the region’s antique shops the next day rather than a late dash home that night, had made up our minds on the instant that we should find somewhere to stop over. A signpost indicated the possible location of an inn and the winding and unlit roads that led us to it were sufficient deterrent for us not to want to repeat the journey in the dark of the night. The narrow strips of tarmac so close to precipitous edges would have deterred even the foolhardiest driver familiar with country from such an excursion at night.

The landlady, who informed us her name was Sam, had welcomed us, readied a room and prepared just a light sandwich supper as we had lunched well.

I had decided after eating to take a walk as I had not exercised for a few days and was feeling seedy, but my spouse had elected to remain stretched out on the bed watching Call the Midwife on catch-up on my laptop over the slightly dodgy hotel Wi-Fi.  I found the bar unattended and empty on my return and had made my way up to our room.

“Did you enjoy your walk,” my wife asked.

“Yes,” I lied, “but I found this great big house.” I showed her the picture of the bell tower. She barely lifting her eyes from the screen to look at it.

“Hummm,” she said in a disinterested voice, turning her attention back to the computer screen.

I read a few pages of a book on Greek metaphysics for a while then, exhausted, we turned out the light and went to sleep. Yet it was not an untroubled rest. Despite my exhaustion and the comfort of the inn bed I found myself lost in a bizarre, maze-like dream. I was back in my old job of investigative reporter and breaking into a large factory-like place with high, dull walls. There were giant men with guard dogs patrolling the grounds, dark, growling, snuffling creatures, and I was constantly dodging behind walls to evade them. Like a true nightmare, I found myself being forced into increasingly smaller spaces as I sought to evade them, with the hot foul breath of the dogs constantly on my neck.

I awoke in a cold sweat at about 3am, the dream still fresh in my mind and, unlike other mares, it didn’t vanish like a vesperal breeze but lingered and it was with difficulty I was able to get back to sleep.

2 Day

The hands of my watch were pointing at 8 o’clock when my eyes next opened. I could hear my wife in the shower and so stirred myself out of bed and we made our way down to breakfast.

Sam, who was tall, blonde, slim, had laid out the breakfast table with cereal, yogurt, fruit and croissants. After asking what we wanted to drink and returning with the coffee, I ventured to say: “That’s an amazing house on the hill.”

“What, the manor?” she asked.

“I guess so,” I said. “I noticed on a web search last night that it was up for sale for an inexpensive £8 million. Is it still on the market do you know?”

Sam shook her head. “No,” she said. “It was bought by a billionaire about a year ago. It has totally changed the character of the village.”

“Over the years it must have changed already,” my wife said. “After all, the townies from London or elsewhere buying holiday homes, or for internet rental properties, must have forced the locals out years ago.”

“Well,” Sam conceded, a bit reluctantly I thought, “I suppose so, and I suppose that I was one of them, but this is an even greater change.” She sat and the table and lent in confidentially, swiftly looking around her as if to make sure no one could overhear us. “You see, he’s also started buying up the land around here, the farms, as well as all the local businesses. He keeps offering to buy me out. He’s even bought the local hairdressers!”

“So how did this billionaire make his money?” I asked.

“Oh, pharmaceuticals and technology,” she replied. “You may have heard of him. Guy Evershott Chidwell.”

I choked on my croissant and my wife had to thump me on the back to help me recover my breath. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, after a few moments spent catching my breath. “Guy Chidwell?” I asked Sam. “I know him. Or rather I interviewed him for a paper once, years ago. The man with the dream.”

“What dream was that?” this from Sam.

“To create a new race of superhumans who could travel to Mars and survive the journey, radiation in space, heat, lack of water and food, etc. He talked of experimenting on himself, surgically implanting chips and linking himself to computers… all sort of Sci-Fi stuff. Caused quite a furore at the time.”

“What does he want with a hill retreat in the English west country?” my wife mused.

Sam shook angrily, like a cat with hackles raised. “He’s evil, that’s what he is. He’s even stopped renting the land out for farming, driving people out of their livings and out of their homes. When he bought it he said he was going to turn the manor into a sort of convalescent home and employ local people to run it, also use it as a conference and meeting centre.”

“And that hasn’t happened,” my wife said in a sympathetic voice.

“Oh, but it has,” said Sam. “It doesn’t replace the work lost, nor help with growing our own food since brexit, and the people who work there, well… they’ve changed, become very surly, won’t talk about the place and what goes on there. As for conferences, there have been quite a few. Big cars and motorcades blocking the lanes, forcing people off the road. Rich people, ex-US presidents some say and leading brexit backers. But the people here don’t like it. Some people are growing fearful and moving out. It’s not looking good for those of us who want to stay.”

“I see,” my curiosity was piqued. I reached into a pocket and pulled out my phone and searched the contacts. “Well, well,” I said. “There’s one thing that people don’t usually change, whatever else happens to them, even if they become billionaires. And that’s their personal assistant’s telephone number.”

I looked at the two ladies. “Shall I be nosey?” I enquired.

3 The Visit

The back of the giant and study dark-stained gates was as tanned as the front and I felt a slight trepidation as they closed behind me with an almost imperceptible electronic hum. A tall, broad man with a mop of dark hair and shoulders as broad as the Nile delta led me across a stone-patioed area that would’ve been big enough to berth an ocean-going liner.

The house, now I saw it, had more double glazing than the Empire State Building and Canary Wharf put together. In front of me an Italianate garden, complete with rows of square parterres, laid out in rectangles separated by flagstone paths and orange trees within a giant oblong, was so extravagantly impressive it would have made Marie Antoinette want to stop eating cake.

I followed my silent guide past a stone balustrade that seemed to overlook the whole of south-west England for as far as the eye could see. This was a ha-ha like illusion. I knew the curve of the hills and tree lines hid the village below.

We seemed to walk for an interminable distance. “Should we stop and call a cab?” I said, trying to keep pace with the big man’s stride. He didn’t answer me but just as I had exhaled my last word we stopped outside a giant door with glass panels leading into what looked like an orangery. The man pulled open the door and ushered me inside. The instant the door closed on me I felt the tropical humidity hit me. Outside had been rather chill, a typical English spring day, and I was wearing a jacket over my T-shirt, which I now stripped off to cope with the sweltering heat.

A voice called me and I turned in its direction. Palms, yuccas, cacti and banana trees blocked me from the sight of Chidwell, but I remembered his voice well enough to know it was he. Feeling like Indiana Jones I pushed my way through the fronds until I came upon a circle of mosaic flooring on which stood a round table loaded with drinks in an ice chiller and two rattan chairs with overstuffed cushions. In one of the chairs sat Chidwell. He was thinner than I remembered, his narrow, eagle-like face and nose were unchanged while his eyes, completely black, stared out at me from a face which was paler than I recalled. It was almost white.

Despite the heat Chidwell was covered by a thick blanket. He gestured for me to sit in the chair opposite and offered me a drink, which I accepted. “Just orange juice,” I said. “Loads of ice.”

Chidwell barked an order and out of nowhere another tall man approached and poured my drink before vanishing wraith like into the foliage.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” I said, as I took a sip of juice. “I must say, it’s a stunning place you have here. Reminds me of the palace of emperor Hadrian.”

A gash-like smile spread across the thin, pale lips, almost invisible against the rest of his skin.

“Hadrian was an ephemeral being,” he said. “My legacy will last a lot longer, I can assure you. So what can I do you for Mr Ransom?” he asked me. “I checked up on you and I see you’re no longer a journalist but I assume this isn’t a social call.”

I took a pull of my orange juice and looked at the shadow of a human. “No, it isn’t,” I said. “I thought that maybe it was time to do a follow-up feature on the one I did a few years ago, I’m sure you remember.”

A laugh broke out, like someone shattering a small glass on an iron railing. It unnerved me. “Oh, yes, the man with the dream you called me.”

I shuffled uneasily in his seat. “To be fair that was the headline writer’s suggestion, I thought it summed up the piece rather well.”

He nodded. “Oh, I agree. The article caused quite a stir as I recall. In fact, it created such a swell of interest in me that I decided to retreat for a while. Public interest in my activities isn’t in my interest.”

I tried to look understanding but before I could stop myself my cynical side showed itself. “It must be hard when you’ve amassed such a large fortune and your products have affected so many lives – employees, customers, investors, the whole planet because of the pollution your businesses have caused – so of course your privacy trumps any other consideration.”

He turned his head and cast an unblinking pair of eyes at me. The whole movement looked unreal, as if it was a dummy manipulated by an unseen animator’s hand. Then his gash of a mouth opened again and he laughed. “That’s what I liked about you and your article. You put things right on the line. It was the best of the bunch.”

I felt perplexed and I’m sure my face and voice showed it. “You jest. You were interviewed by the scientific journals and leading experts at the time. I was, by comparison, little more than a scribbler of words, not knowledgeable in the field in any way.”

He nodded. “And that, I think, is what made your words more insightful. You spoke from the heart, you wrote the story in words people could understand, without overcomplicating the message. You were the only one who asked the most important question, which all the others did not. For all their supposed knowledge and intelligence, not one of them thought to ask me the only question worth asking, their self-satisfaction and sense of self-worth prevented them from doing so.”

He looked at me piercingly as if to come back with an answer, but for the life of me I could not think of what I had said that would have stood out to him in such a way. “And what question was that?” I asked him.

“Oh,” here he laughed again, more broken glass. “The only question a journalist ever really needs to ask. Why. Do you remember the answer?” Chidwell asked.

“Of course, urm, you said… No, not really. It was something about the glory of the humanity living forever among the stars, wasn’t it?”

“Ha, no, not quite. It was more that the history of humanity would live among the stars and its story would continue. It would be quite impossible for man, this flimsy creature of flesh and sinew and bone, to live much beyond his planet or survive the events that will befall it without an incredible amount of adaptation.”

“Ah, yes, I recall. The transhuman, sort of a cyborg, adapted to live in zero gravity, the cold of space, resistant to the radiation of space flight and on new worlds, live without water and even if necessary oxygen.” I smiled but there was little humour in it.

“You disapprove?” Chidwell’s asked, surprise in his voice for the first time.

I shrugged. “I neither approve nor disapprove,” I said. “But let’s face it, it’s not really human is it?”

“Humanity has always adapted, always survived, the two go together. If man cannot adapt he does not deserve to survive.”

“But,” I said, “we see mankind unable to adapt now. The world is calling out for an end to fossil fuels, for companies to behave responsibly to cut pollution, for governments to take a lead in reshaping trade to move away from existing models to a more circular form of economic growth, yet no one does anything.”

Chidwell nodded. “Indeed, but then humanity is psychologically trapped, vast swathes of humanity, particularly in developed countries, are unable to face the fact their world is dying before their eyes but many if not most refuse to accept it. They’re simply incapable of the kind of adaptation they need. Their governments, their media, and other companies that exist only to make and produce and sell them products, which they will dispose of and replace with more things to dispose of, are not capable of the leap of imagination needed for the race to survive.”

“I see,” I said. “Yet your vision of the future depends on humans adapting.”

“Yes, but peoples who are only capable of living on pointless financial profit and put that above the survival of their species are not capable or worthy of saving, don’t you agree.” It was said as a statement, not a question.

I had to laugh. “In my saner moments, I might agree with you, but that’s very cold blooded, and I’m not capable of thinking like that. It’s a little too Ayn Rand for me – letting the devil take the hindmost is not my style. But then it’s also a little rich – pardon the pun – for a man who’s made billions selling electronics and drugs to folks to preach about others making pointless financial profits.”

Chidwell made a sudden jerky movement and his head turned to face me, his features contorted as if in pain, a truly frightening sight, but this moment passed, although the expression his face remained a dreadful one.

“You think my profits were pointless?” he said in an angry voice.

“Well, on a personal level I can see you’ve bought your own version of Versailles in the hills of the English south-west and in doing so made it your personal playground, but I don’t see how this is salvaging anything of mankind.”

“Oh, you don’t?” There was a snarl to his voice. “Then come with me and I will show you.” He flung off the blanket and I saw for the first time that he was dressed all in black and attached by long, different coloured wires to some sort of computer, a coffee table-height grey metal box of blinking lights. He made a circular gesture with the forefinger of his left hand and one of the big attendants in white appeared silently. This figure uncoupled Chidwell from the box of tricks and the billionaire stood up. I briefly saw his left forearm. It was filled with what looked like round jack-plug sockets and USB ports. Then he pulled his jumper sleeve down to cover the grotesque sight.

He faced me as the servant vanished, catching the expression of disgust on my face. “Have you,” he said, a smile of grim satisfaction on his face, “just realised how I’ve been spending my billions yet?”

“Yes,” I said. “You’re no longer human.”

4 The tour

We left the orangery, the cool spring air a huge relief after the oppressive heat. “As you see, I’m already acclimatising myself to the warmer temperatures of space and other worlds. Eventually I will be able to survive in temperatures of over 70 degrees Fahrenheit and can resist the cold up to 125 degrees.”

“That’s impossible,” I said in disbelief. “No human can survive those extremes.”

“Indeed,” he looked at me with those black eyes of his again. “But as you yourself have pointed out, I’m no longer human. At least not fully so. What you noticed in there is me updating and adding to my inner-man, shall we say.”

We started walking again and stopped by the balustrade. “So what are you then?”

He turned and eyed me, a sliver glow in his pupils I had not noticed in the orangery reflected in the sunlight. “I am less than a man and more the essence of humanity,” he said. “But come, I shall explain everything in its proper place.”

He swept a hand over the view in front of me. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“Dorset,” I shrugged.

“We’re nearly 800 metres above sea level and around me is more than 125,453 metres of prime rural agricultural land. Do you know what that means?”

“You can grow a lot of shredded wheat?”

He clicked his fingers in happiness. “Correct,” he said. “And I can keep growing it when the rest of the lands beneath have been flooded because global warming and climate will change the world in ways the people down below currently can’t – or refuse – to comprehend. They refuse to confess to themselves that time changes space, unutterably and forever.”

“So what is this,” I shifted on me toes, no longer comfortable in Chidwell’s presence. “A personal refuge for you and yours?”

He paused and reflected on this for a moment. “For my kind, yes. But come, everything here has a purpose devoted to achieving my ultimate goal.”

“For the history of humanity and live and thrive among the stars?”

“Yes. You see the parterres below? They are research beds. Each one contains plants that may become the protein humanity needs to survive. Colourful, aren’t they? But that is just a piece of serendipity, for those parterres and other experiments in hydroponics in cellars beneath the house actually contain lichens and fungi that have the potential to replace meat as protein in the diet of a future humanity.”

We continued walking. “But surely that has the potential to end human hunger now,” I said. “And think of the possible benefits in terms of reducing CO2 emissions.”

He shook his head. “My dear fellow, that diet would not, could not, help humanity now. The human race would need substantially reengineering to be able to live off it as it is presently. I have been adapted so my digestive system could cope with such a diet, as have some of my staff and followers, but for the rest of humanity…”

We walked down some stone steps and toward what looked like a large stone and brick-built building with a set of large wooden doors. It looked like a kind of garage or large shed. Except it was as big as the average five or six-bedroomed home in the UK.

“So you’re not planning a mass rescue for humanity then?” I said. “Just a select few.

“Oh, indeed, indeed, a very select few, very select indeed.” This he seemed to find amusing and he chuckled as we paused before the doors. “But the history of mankind will come with us and live on. We will have the combined wisdom the ages – Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Marx, Confucius, and more to call on and build a new world beyond this one.”

“I see. But the wisdom of the ages is useless unless you have put some actual effort into acquiring any yourself. And presumably you’ll also have all the combined, confected pent-up rage and racial hatred and tribal tensions that are embedded in those philosophers’ thinking like flour in bread. Can you breed those things out?”

His face betrayed no expression. “Why should we? That is man’s condition. The strong survive and the weak...” He never finished his sentence, but turning from me he again waved his finger in a small movement, as if of command, and one of the wooden doors swung open. As it did so, I realised it was backed with metal and was at least a foot thick.

“Security?” I asked.

Chidwell ushered me into the gloom beyond and I entered with my feeling of unease growing stronger by the minute. “In a way,” he said. “It will certainly keep intruders out but it is also part of an airlock, of a type. You see, you are leaving the physical world as I knew it and entering a new reality. You’re the first person I have shown this who is not one of my servants or followers. I wonder,” his black eyes turned to look at me, “if you can understand? We shall find out.”

As we entered the building a reddish tinge lit up the space around us. Around me were the original brick walls of the building, but beyond this the walls of the corridor were lined with what looked like metal sheeting. As we walked I felt a kind of buzz which affected my whole body. It was like a mild electric charge, but not unpleasant. I even felt the hair on my head begin to stand on end.

“And what is this?” I asked.

“You asked earlier,” he said, “what I have become. For I am no longer totally human and shall become less so. No, I am a quantum being,” he said in a sonorous voice. “I could have merged with binary or digital technology long ago, but waited until quantum computing had advanced sufficiently enough that I could adapt myself to become the ultimate human being. The realm in which I inhabit is no longer your world, your universe. I am now built of literally innumerable lines of code which has replaced my DNA. My lungs are metal and can breathe any atmosphere, but for several hours a day I still have to acclimatise myself in heat that no ordinary person could survive in for more than a few hours. My bones have been replaced by framework of hardened tungsten and other alloys that can resist the hottest temperatures of space and my skin is made of a special combination of polymers that will not melt except in the very heart of the sun. However, I still need a certain amount of proteins and vitamins, which is why I’m experimenting with the lichens and other plant life you saw outside. As for my eyes… well, my transformation is not yet complete.”

I shook my head in wonder mixed with terror. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“For the good of the species,” he said. “And I’m not alone. Nearly everyone who has entered these portals – president or servant, Nobel prize-winner or vagabond – has undergone at least a part of the process and is in a state of becoming, as I am.”

“Becoming what?”

“Immortal. The body may become more synthetic, the heart and lungs replaced, the blood more like a lubricant, but the essence of the species will be retained in us, and in that way humanity will be immortal.”

I thought to myself that this would explain why those local residents Sam had told me about who had chosen to work at the estate had become surly and more uncommunicative.

We had walked as he talked and had arrived at what looked like a door to a massive airlock. Nearby was a steel rack of eye protectors with tallow-coloured lenses. Chidwell handed one of this to me and indicated I put it on. “I’m now going to show you the heart of what I’ve been doing here,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll be amazed.”

“What is this?” Apprehension was tugging at my chest as I put the goggles on. He had already donned his.

“This is the way to the stars, truly,” he said. Again he made a movement of his finger and the door slid open and he ushered me through it and into a whole new universe.

5 The face of the Gorgon

I was in what looked like an airlock in a submarine or space craft, not that I’ve been in either, but I’d seen enough movies to have a feeling for what they might look like. The door behind us shut and its twin in front began to slide open.

At first I thought there was only blackness beyond but as the opening widened I saw what looked a star-filled sky occupied the chamber beyond. Nervously I followed Chidwell into the chamber and the door slid shut behind me.

Around me swirled a universe of planets and suns, of blue and black darkness, of glittering space dust and the light that shone from novas, supernovas and albedos that illuminated it all. At the same time I felt as if I was floating in a void, weightless. At first I had thought I was in something like a planetarium and the star fields around me were a giant three-dimensional holographic projection, but as I became accustomed to my surroundings I realised that this was more than an artificial illusion. To start with it was all around me and I was literally floating off the ground.

“What on earth is this?” I asked, as I spun head over heels. Somehow I had become upside down. Or Chidwell had. But then I remembered there is no up or down in space.

“We’re in a time vortex,” he said. “This chamber only exists in the quantum realm. It is located within the property yet it is real as it occupies a twin dimension. I can assure you we’re in space. If you look above your head you will see the earth and over there is the moon.”

“But how can we exist without oxygen?” I asked.

“The chamber has been adapted. The walls contain a unique alloy that allow us to maintain ambient earth atmosphere within a vortex of time. Literally we are stationary within time and space.”

I looked towards Saturn. Its rings spun beautifully around it. I had never seen anything so stunning. “But what’s the point of it?”

“The point,” he laughed, “is that at the flick of a finger I can cause the time vortex to cease suspension, and so propel the occupants of this room into real time at this point in the heavens and send them to any planet or corner of the universe. Of course, without the right equipment they would die. Even in my enhanced human state, I may not be able to withstand the cold nor the vacuum of space for long. But in this stasis I can remain indefinitely and you will survive at least 24 hours.”

“I see,” I said, not seeing at all. “But what’s the point of the visors?”

“Ah, the time vortex creates an unfortunate effect on the optic nerve of a human being. I’ve not yet been able to correct it within myself. The time vortex creates a light not found in nature. The visors screen out its effects. The light not only makes you go blind but drives you insane, so insane that to look at it directly would almost certainly kill you. It is, in essence, like looking into the face of the Gorgon.”

I was starting to feel giddy and a new idea gripped me. “I think I’d like to leave,” I said.

Chidwell looked around the chamber one last time. “Certainly, we have things to discuss,” he said as he guided me to be the same way up as he was.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like how you will become one of us.”

His voice as matter of fact, but his meaning was obvious. I was to become in some way an enhanced human. “Like the others who work here?” I asked. He said nothing but made an affirmative noise in his throat.

He propelled me towards the door and I felt gravity start to reassert itself as the portal opened. I was about a metre from the airlock when I turned and ripped his visor from his face. Still in my semi-gravity free state I swung towards him and kicked him hard in the chest with both feet.

The agonised twisted expression on his face contorted into a scream of hatred and fear that still haunts me. He tried to grab me but his eyes were closed and he missed. In his pain and terror his hands went to his eyes and, at that same moment, he must have made the movement with his fingers that ended the magic security of the time vortex. He was sucked into infinity by the swirl of the universe like a kid swallowing a ball of bubble gum and he shot away from me like a meteor in the night sky. With incredible speed I saw him being propelled into the far distance.

At the same time I could feel the forces starting to reach out from the void to touch me and fast as I could I stepped into the airlock. Not without effort I pushed the inner door to the vortex closed behind me, Chidwell’s screams still echoing in my ears.

I thought I might be trapped there forever, in that space between my world and the icy horror of space that lay behind me, but after a few moments tapping the walls I found an emergency door release switch hidden beneath a metal panel. This I pressed – and then I was back in the tunnel, back in the garage with the metal-lined door, then out in the full moon of the spring night, running as fast as I could past the parterres and orange trees.

Behind me I heard the cries of the servants, the barking of dogs. A memory of my nightmare of the evening before, of the hot fetid breath of hounds on my neck, came back to me. Panicked, I ran on towards the gate I would have to scale to reach the world beyond it.

The End

© Adam Jezard May 2023