The Hipster From Outer Space (The Hipster Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

Moomamu watched as the broken man didn’t back away. Instead, he pushed forward. The eating stick pushed the beast backwards towards the spherical hole, its ripples now larger than the beast itself. They watched as the broken man pushed forward, screaming in pain; as the flames fell and engulfed him too, connecting him to the beast in yellow fury. The beast howled and they both fell backwards, disappearing with a single step into what seemed like nothing, the screams of the two of them vanishing in a second like someone had flipped a switch.

Moomamu looked at the cat. It looked sick, ill, tired. It was on its side. Its breath was weak again.

“Thinker must go through,” the cat said. “Otherwise Earth will be swallowed whole. All Tall Ones will die.”

“And me?” Moomamu said.
 

The cat looked at him. His lime-sliced eyes bigger than ever. He looked at him with pity.

“Thinker will die.”

“And there’s no way home?” Moomamu said.

The cat didn’t reply. It gently shook its head side to side — a human expression for no.

Moomamu looked at his cat companion and felt like he always knew he was going to die here. He was on a set path. Like he’d taken this step many times before, in different timelines, in different corners of space-time, in different stories. His journey was coming to an end.

He thought about the seven billion humans on this planet. The seven billion Martas. The little beacons of life. The miracles with eyes and feet and fingers and eyes. Smelling and tasting the world that they’d happened upon … or had the world happened upon them? How lucky a planet must be to find life.

He felt strange. The fibres of his human body were tired — stretched and wrung of any energy they may have once had. His hand began to vibrate through space-time. It was everywhere at once. It quivered, teleporting everywhere and back again. He followed the vibrations up his arm and to his torso. His entire being was trembling, glitching, like a broken piece of code.

“Thinker must go now, before it’s too late,” the cat said.

He climbed to his feet and looked at the hole. He could see through it. He saw see the vacuum behind it. He could see the others. The thousands of parasites. Each hovering above their own holes, reaching inside the holes with their consciousness’s, searching for their hosts.

“Gary is sorry,” the cat said. “Gary didn’t want to lie.”

“I know,” Moomamu said. “I know, Gary.”

Moomamu took a step forward, and then another, and then another. With each step he found himself in a different point in time and space — in wind, ice, desert, in the clouds, below the water. In each place, he made the same choice. He stepped forward one more time, forcing his human eyes to stay open, and was nowhere, floating, in the Outer Reaches. He saw the thousands, no, millions of parasites now. They looked at him, but it was like Gary said. His human body couldn’t survive in space. He closed his eyes and found himself floating in nothing, being nothing — nothing at all.

Grant Darlington-Whit

The early morning sun was about to rise. The twilight around them. The smell of fire and blood was heavy. His breath so cold it clung to the air. The sweat on Grant’s head cooled within seconds and he started to shiver.
 

A farm of sorts. Several animals were grazing in pastures. A horse was on its own, looking over at them. He had no recollection of arriving or leaving.

“Over there,” a voice said.
 

Grant turned to see the shrouded figure and he remembered. The hallway. This hooded cadaver was The Light. He’d brought him here and was now looming over him like the Grim Reaper, pointing towards a gravel-laden path leading up to a barn.
 

Grant walked towards it, pushed open the door and was met with the smell of rotting flesh.

“Rosie?” Grant shouted. “Bexley? Are you here?”
 

He carefully stepped inside. Other than the fingers of sunlight poking through the holes in the ceiling, the place was dark.

Grant stepped over a fence and towards the remains of a dead body on the floor. He looked at its face. It wasn’t his concern. It wasn’t one of his. Next to the body was a pile of black mess.

“It’s already been closed,” The Light said. He was standing at the entrance.

“What has?”

“The tear. It’s already been closed.” The Light didn’t seem disappointed. He simply turned and walked back to the outside.
 

“And my children?” Grant shouted after him.

He ran out and followed The Light down the gravel path to a smoking pile of debris. They didn’t go too far before Grant saw the old Saab in the car park. He ran over, leaving The Light behind him, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the two burned bodies next to it.
 

He felt sick. He already knew who they belonged to.
 

“No,” he said as he slowly walked towards them. “No no no.” He crouched down next to the smaller body and could see through the burned and blistered flesh that it was his daughter. He saw the familiar overbite. He saw from the shape of her head. The worst thing was the look on her face. Pure fear. She’d died scared. He ran his hand over her face as The Light walked over.
 

“Loss of loved ones. It’s something you get used to,” The Light said.

Grant moved over to the other body. It was just as burned, just as broken. As tears fell from his cheeks he heard The Light murmur something before disappearing. Unable to work out the logic of it all, Grant fell to his knees next to his dead son. He leaned over Bexley’s body and pried the pistol from his burnt hands.
 

Grant breathed deeply in the harsh cold air of the spring morning before pulling the hammer back and placing the barrel in his mouth. He was resting his finger on the trigger when …

“Dad,” a voice said, wheezing, barely audible.
 

“Bexley?” Grant replied, lowering the gun, turning to see that his son’s eyes were open, scared and white, like the pale woman’s.
 

Carol Francis

Carol stood in the puddle of mud and it splashed up her wellington boot, dripping down inside. She bent over, picked up the stick — wet with saliva and rain — and threw it, spinning it through the air where it bounced off a tree and into some overgrowth. Indie bounded through the bushes and sticks and mud with ease and returned with the stick, dropping it into a different puddle. A muddier one.

“Okay, Indie,” she said. “One more time before we start heading back.”

She fished the stick out of the water. The dirty water dripped down from her hand, into the sleeve of her big coat that was supposed to keep the water out. She threw it again. As Indie ran towards it, she saw rays of sunlight splitting as they beamed through the trees towards them. She squinted and placed her hand above her eyes. Rays of the neighbouring star warmed her cold face and hand. It was morning.
 

“Well, Indie,” she said. “Looks like we’ll be here for a little longer than we thought.”

Luna Gajos

There wasn’t much to say after a night like that. Luna and Gary drove down the almost-empty roads, passing miles of concrete in silence, running past hundreds of lines of white as they went. Luna reached over and took a French fry from the paper bag sat between them. It was cold. They’d stopped an hour before at some fast food place. Gary had eaten the chicken, leaving an empty bun of salad and sauce for Luna. She picked up the cola and slurped it up through the straw.

Outside, over the hills of green and trees, peppered with the dark grey buildings and farm houses, the sun peeked its head, peering over the horizon at them.

“Nearly there,” Luna said. “Won’t be too long.”
 

Gary didn’t say anything. The drugs had now worn off but he looked worse than ever. His fur was matted and backed up into dirty little spikes.

“Yep yep, I’ll be going home, grabbing a quick shower, and then heading over to work to open up.” She tapped the steering wheel, and looked over again. Nothing. “So Gary, where exactly are you going to go?”

“Gary isn’t sure yet. He’ll wait until next mission becomes apparent and then will go and do that.”

“You know, you can stay at my flat until … you know … the next mission becomes apparent.”

Gary nodded. His cast was soaked through and was mostly falling off, revealing the stitches. She leaned over and stroked his head. He didn’t purr.

“Seven billion Tall Ones are alive and well and they will never know of Thinker’s sacrifice,” Gary said.
 

“I know, but … I know,” Luna sighed.

“Thinker was more honourable than Gary thought.”

“Well,
we
know about his sacrifice. We know what he did.”

“But the other billions don’t,” he said.

“I promise I’ll feel seven billion times the gratitude if that helps?” Luna said.

“It does,” Gary said.

A road sign passed over their heads that read ‘London’ and they drove onwards, back home, back to real life.
 

Lucas

The Shoreditch Grind

Lucas lifted the shutters. His arms ached as he pushed the cold metal upwards until it clicked into place. He brushed his dirty fingers against his Parka coat and unlocked the front door.
 

The inside was all sterile surfaces and shiny floors. Chairs flipped upside down and balancing on the clean tables. The metal of the espresso machine freshly polished. He flicked the light switch and looked at the rustic clock above the espresso machine: 05:30am.
 

The new guy hadn’t turned up yet. Not a good start.

He yawned, stretched his arms out in front of him, cracked his neck, and readied himself for another day of work. Another day, exactly like all the others before. Another day of living.
 

He put some classical music on. It was the only time of the day he could get away with it. Once the hipsters arrived later on the sounds of the café would be theirs to dominate. The sounds of the London Philharmonic echoed throughout the room as he unflipped the chairs, took the mugs from the dishwasher and stacked them, ready for use. He ground the coffee beans and turned on the espresso machine. Within twenty minutes the place was about ready for the day ahead. He looked at the clock again. 05:55am. Still no sign of the new guy.
 

It was at around this time that the first regular turned …

Knock knock.
 

The hairy knuckles of the first regular rapped on the glass door. Her elderly face with made-up rosy cheeks was pressed against the window, leaving a pale impression on the glass.
 

“Just a second,” Lucas shouted as he walked over to the door. He flipped the sign around to ‘Open’ and opened the door. “We do open at six,” he reminded her as the woman pushed past him.

“Customer’s always right,” she said as she unzipped her coat and placed it on the hangar to the side of the door. “Usual, please.”

Lucas filled the espresso cap with ground beans and fit it to the machine. It drooled deep black into the cup and the smell of the first coffee of the day filled the air. It warmed his nostrils. He used the double-nuzzled cap and made himself a cappuccino along with the customer’s.

He took the cappuccino over to her and placed it on the table with a wink.

“Thanks dear,” she said as she pulled her latest romance novel out of her bag —
The Successful Man
it was called. A Terry Rowlings book.

He’d served this woman, without fail, at this time for the past two years or so. She signified that this day would be a day just like all the others. She exemplified to Lucas that his life would be a mundane one. It would be an existence of service. He would make unappreciative people coffees and teas every single day until he retired, or died, or people stopped drinking coffees and teas. Which, in London, England, was unlikely. Perhaps, he thought, it would be better if it all stopped. If his existence would just come to an end. Would that not be better than this mundanity?

On his way to the café that morning, he’d passed hundreds, no, thousands of Londoners on their daily commute. He’d seen businessmen with briefcases with conquered faces on their way to the office. He’d seen the immigrants from around the world who’d gone to London to find some sort of excitement, but instead found long hours and high-rent prices. He’d seen the foodies opening up their fusion cafés and he’d seen the upper-class students with strawberry faces. And he’d seen the armies of hipsters
 
in their sartorial uniforms, wearing their superior sense of entitlement on their sleeves along with their retro digital watches. He’d seen the same thing every morning. Different names and faces all the same from the outside.

Instead of waking up every morning and serving Londoners coffee, would it be better if it all … stopped for a while? If it all ended? Couldn’t the world just end?

He sighed as the hairy-knuckled woman slurped her coffee and looked at the clock. 06:10am.

Where the fuck was the new guy?