It was twilight as Scott walked the final few ks towards the cabin. He noticed something odd about the sky. He had been so deep in thought it only really caught his attention when he felt patches of heat. Shards of sunlight from a sun that was almost set, as if another light source of equal power was trying to break through. No, he thought, more like miniature suns but strangely isolated.
Scott was caught in the spectacle, could not look away.
Ever since his return he felt he was on borrowed time, that It would catch up with him. Not just the shared ‘end of world’ reports Deanna had mentioned (dismissed all too readily by government officials as the incoherent ramblings of cultists). No, this was something from the depths of space, the edge of which he had touched. What he had really escaped was not his past, it was his future. His fate? And yet it was so much bigger than his life or his work, or anything he could affect. Just another helpless soul caught up in its tide.
But not over yet.
He started to run. For much of journey back he had been imagining how Deanna would react to what he had seen at the institute; rehearsing the words in his mind. Now that was all irrelevant, insignificant.
At least the cabin appeared normal, it illuminated at his approach. He rushed inside, shouting: ‘Deanna!’
But she was not there. None of her possessions were there. He called up her comm-link – except he got the system’s reply: ‘There are two other people of that name registered. Please specify the person you wish---’
‘My Deanna, you stupid thing.’
‘You have no personal link with anyone of that name.’
The thought occurred to him that she had been taken, that somehow her identity had been eliminated. He checked his personal comm – which blossomed into a screen on his hand. Her ident had been wiped, no record of her.
‘No one can do this. No one!’ he said, shaking his head.
The whole day had been a fool’s errand; his need to avenge had meant he’d lost her. It seemed such a simple equation to him now.
But the certainty of this logic disappeared with the chair at the far corner. It simply vanished into thin air amidst a distortion of the surrounding panels. The distortion effect was spreading, heading towards him. For a few seconds he stood frozen, captivated by this strange phenomenon, until some base survival instinct kicked in. He ran out into the garden, staring round desperately for a safe route away. The distortion effects continued: trees twisting to become malformed grotesqueries, as if animated in a child’s cartoon nightmare, before they vanished along with the flowers. There seemed no pattern to these disappearances, no path through which he could navigate. As far as he could determine they were purely random but at least spaced sufficiently that he could chance an escape.
He ran in the general direction of the bus station with the vague notion, that just the possibility of an airbus was the only logical option.
He wasn't surprised to see no one else; this was a sparsely populated area. The disappearances continued to occur without seeming to increase in intensity. The sky was still an incongruous mixture of sunlight and dark, but now these areas were alternating, like dancing spotlights.
It did surprise him that a bus arrived on schedule, just as if the world was still functioning normally. No passengers on board, or any person at all. Its navigation was entirely automated, likewise the process of taking his credit when he requested Banff station.
Only now in what seemed like the relative safety of the airbus were his thoughts able to coalesce into something coherent. Was it just instinct to get as far away as possible? If he could get the train to a city there’d be someone who might offer an answer.
As the bus got within a few kilometres of Banff, Scott saw the first signs panic: people seemingly running in terror. Had they witnessed their family, friends vanish? He recognised the curious amorality in his desperate desire to see someone vanish, just to be reassured that it was not in any way an unpleasant process.
But he only saw the after-effects.
Banff station was crowded. Loud chattering, crying of young children; parents shouting at them, shouting at the few official-looking staff. It seemed people were kept in the dark about this; no warning, otherwise why had they not gone already? Unless there was nowhere to go.
After a ten minute wait a train did arrive: the express to Toronto. The crowd bustled toward the doors, pushing others out of the way with continuing shouts and screams, as if they were competing for the only way to survive. Humanity reduced to the basic instinct of the herd. Scott considered waiting for another train, but all the information services were down. And even though he knew this train could not assure his survival, it seemed his best chance to reach for those answers. Perhaps they were all thinking the same; survival was not simply about avoiding danger.
Finally, as the train was half full, the station staff managed to take control, checking everyone who boarded. Perhaps this had been anticipated: the train was about twice as long as standard. The guard checked him over suspiciously, but at least did not ask him about the nature of his journey before allowing him aboard.
As the train began to glide off the station, Scott started thinking about a woman who had appeared in his dreams. She was beautiful, with dark hair, and he thought he was in love with her. But his memory of her was faint. He knew she had a name and that it began with a D. ‘Silly fantasy,’ he told himself. It seemed sad, all of a sudden, why he had never met anyone so special in real life. Maybe he was hoping to meet this perfect fantasy woman. He suddenly felt so utterly alone.
People were calmer now; but that only lasted until the landscape dramatically changed. It was coming from the north-west. Watching from a receding – backwards – view. Pine trees simply disappeared, replaced by shrub-land.
Amidst the gasps of horror, the train itself began to disappear.
***