Losing Inertia Read online

  LOSING INERTIA

  By VK Gregory

  Copyright © 2017 by VK Gregory

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United Kingdom

  First Printing, 2017

  www.facebook.com/VKauthor/

  For my Father, a writer too and my husband who never stopped believing in me

  Chapter One

  Something wasn’t right. The air seemed slowed, like in the eye of a storm, or in the half-light moments before something horrific happened. Gripping my bag closer, I glanced around the store but noticed nothing strange. I pushed away the feeling and hurried through the store towards the checkout lanes. With my basket clanging against my leg, each hit jabbing into my bare calf and tickling me with plant leaves, I bustled as fast as I could. Past the flooring and shelves, through the wallpaper and paint until I saw the orange sign ahead saying ‘checkout here’.

  Something appealing caught my eye and distracted, I stopped. A group of fruity looking strawberry red candles sat in a white wire basket to my right. I picked one up, holding it to my nose as I inhaled the sweet berry scent, forgetting momentarily the sensation of disquiet that had hurried me. But as I stood there, holding my berry sweet candle, the scent of summer in my nostrils, it hit me; I looked around with creeping realisation.

  The stillness wasn’t just the air; all around me people had stopped. They stood, lifelike statues, frozen in a moment of time. Ahead, a dozen or more people stood in perfect stillness. I mirrored their stillness, the candle forgotten beneath my nose, breathing shallow, quick breaths. My eyes fell on a young blonde woman, holding the hand of a little blonde girl; both dressed in bright yellow cardigans and pale blue trousers, like impossible twins. The girl’s frozen smile seemed eerie as I stared at her, and then at her mother; neither reacted to me. I looked around, seeing the others striking similar impossible frozen poses. The unobtrusive store music played quietly overhead.

  A joke. It had to be a joke. A thousand possibilities pirouetted through my disordered mind as my pulse quickened. A 2-minute silence? D-Day? Did someone have a gun? My heart thumped loud enough for me to hear as I remained frozen in confusion and indecision. What should I do? So I waited, standing as still as everyone else, waiting for the gunman or the bomb threat, or many other fleeting options. But there was just stillness. Stillness and the ever repeating song on the overhead speakers.

  After a few minutes, I forced myself to move, my feet sounding ominously loud on the grey tiled floor. What was happening?

  ‘Hello?’ the woman ahead of me didn’t move and my voice sounded too loud in the unnatural silence, so I didn’t speak again. As I approached, I saw her eyes following me - watching, yet they never seemed to move. Unnerved, I walked towards them, putting down my basket of leafy plants on the shiny grey-white tiles. Something would give them away, a flinch, a blink, a swallow, anything to break the unbearable stillness, I reached out a tentative hand to touch her hair but withdrew it before I reached her. My swift movement caused a wispy piece of hair to flutter slightly as if in a breeze and I detected the tiniest movement of her dress too. Around her lingered the faintest aroma of perfume, haunting the air like smoke.

  The surreal scene felt almost comical, the frozen people around me stood as if waiting for a director to say “cut.” A hand outstretched here, a leg in the air, balancing, dancing, laughing, but not living.

  I walked around the front and faced the woman; not too close but close enough. She stared right at me, eyes boring into mine, accusing and blaming. Uncomfortable, I looked at the others. Eyes. All the eyes stared at me. They were watching me. My breath quickened, I was, for once, the centre of attention.

  Daniel. I needed to find him. Leaving my basket on the ground, I swung around to search the store. Eagle eyes sought out the faces of all the livingstatues around me, desperate to find him and praying desperately that he was not like them. But I could not see him. Carefully I navigated through the statues, looking at every face, but barely needing to; I would know Danny when I saw him. I avoided touching anyone, and avoided looking at their eyes, but still I could feel their staring gazes.

  My eyes rested on one young woman, probably about my age, wrapped up in a long piece of purple fabric. A perfectly still baby sat in the purple fabric, his tiny red face screwed up in a frozen moment of crying. The woman’s pursed lips frozen as she walked, hushing her crying child. In that moment I felt my chest fill with the ache of fear. A hundred adults could pull off a prank like this - maybe, but they could not silence a screaming baby. Or freeze him mid cry. I swallowed a painful lump in my throat. Reality hit me like a yawning fear. I needed Danny.

  Something caught my eye in the darker corner of the store, near the selection of polished, wooden-handled shovels, I looked closer, searching out in the darkness. Silently praying.

  ‘Daniel?’ whispering as quietly as I could, I stepped closer, afraid of something worse, something worse than the livingstatues. ‘Danny?’ blood rushed loudly in my ears as I swallowed.

  A shadow moved, something crinkly fell from a shelf, footsteps getting louder and closer until someone stepped out into the light. In shock, I dropped the candle, forgotten in my hand. It fell with a crash to the floor, the glass smashing into a thousand tiny pieces that spread across the ground like water droplets. Daniel came into focus as he carefully side stepped round a large man, his eyes sweeping across the store looking for the source of the crash.

  ‘Danny’

  ‘Katy?’ he whisper-called, his slightly stubbly face turning and filling with relief as he saw me. I ran to him, avoiding the living statues in front of me, ‘What’s going on?’ he asked taking me in his arms. Small dots of bubbling sweat heightened the pallor of his face, I hugged him in relief, smelling the musky scent of aftershave as I rested my head on his shoulder,

  ‘I don’t know,’ I let go of him, shaking my head, suddenly the shock and fear encompassed me, his eyes were wide and staring, ‘and did you see? They are watching us?’ he looked at me, paling even more, and then he glanced at the living statue of an old lady, whose eyes seemed to follow us wherever we went.

  ‘How? Why?’ he reached out and took both hands and I took them gladly, the human contact instantly calming me. I took a moment to breathe and calm my fast beating heart,

  ‘Did you see the baby? They couldn’t make a baby stop crying, mid cry,’ he looked where I looked and his hands squeezed mine, ‘I’m scared, I’m really scared,’

  ‘We’re getting out of here, if this is a joke, it’s a bad one.’ He paused, trying to keep his calm as he thought, then his eyes glanced down. ‘ Oh God, is…you know okay?’ he indicated to my stomach. The baby. I blushed and shrugged. I hadn’t even thought about it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he looked concerned, ready to say more but thinking better of it,

  ‘Let’s just go, the door’s open, we can leave,’ I nodded, it made sense, we had to leave this store. Out there, we could get help, find someone and figure it out. But not while being watched by a hundred livingstatues.

  Stepping outside the double doors, the cool breeze hit me. The change from the stillness of the hardware store felt so dramatic that I gasped. Somewhere in the distance I heard a car alarm, beeping loudly like a warning, I couldn’t see where it was coming from. In the far distance by the toy store, I noticed a couple standing together smoking, the clouds of smoke filling the air, but I was too far away to hear their conversation.

  ‘We should tell someone,’ I glanced back into the store expecting everyt
hing to be back to normal, but no one had moved yet.

  ‘You can phone someone, let’s just get in the car,’ Daniel looked back into the store and shook his head, ‘Seriously, that’s messed up,’ we spent a moment just watching the statues in the store, waiting for someone to move,

  ‘Let’s just go home Danny,’ suddenly very tired and drained by the afternoon’s experiences. The fear had stolen the joy from our Saturday, and I just wanted to get back to my house, sit down and have a cup of sweet tea.

  ‘We never bought those plants for the front,’ I had completely forgotten about the plants, still sitting there in my basket next to that blonde woman and the child. I shuddered in recollection and I thought I would never be able to go back into that store, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Somehow the stillness had affected me more than I wanted to admit,

  ‘I think we can do it another day,’ I replied, meaning never. We strolled over to our car in silence, the coolness of the air giving me goose pimples across my neck. I gripped my coat around me tightly. I felt so on edge, waiting for something unknown to happen, that I barely noticed the man standing next to our car door.

  ‘Excuse me, mate’ said Daniel. The man didn’t move but his dark grey coat swayed in the breeze.

  ‘Mate, I need to get to my car,’ Daniel looked at me and I shrugged, forcing a half-hearted smile, ‘hey,’ Daniel’s voice had an edge of annoyance, ‘mate.’ He reached out one large, hand and touched the man on his shoulder; it was a gentle touch, just a tap. But in that moment, the man’s shoulder seemed to shrivel beneath his fingertips, it caved in, as if withdrawing, shrinking away from his touch. And it spread, like a fast burning fire, moving down his body, shrivelling his skin, his flesh withering.

  ‘What?’ he cried as we both stepped back, looking around for help but I could see no one. The man suddenly let out a shriek of pain that seemed involuntarily but filled our heads entirely. Daniel face gave nothing away as he watched him,

  ‘Help him’ I screamed to Daniel, but his eyes had strayed from the shrivelling man. His large round eyes stared around the expansive car park. ‘Daniel, do something,’ I pulled on his thin blue jacket, trying to get his attention. The man had become emaciated, old, and withered right before our eyes as he moaned and creaked in pain, falling, his body began disintegrating into dust as he howled in unspeakable agony. The dust that rose into the air tasted acrid and dry and I realised I was breathing him in, breathing his life and death. All this in a matter of seconds, while I could only stand and watch his obliteration.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Katy,’ Danny said, reaching for, but not taking my hand, ‘look’ and I tore frightened eyes away from the dying man, to the car park. We hadn’t been able to see the car park fully from the entrance to the hardware store. But now I could see it all. I looked around, seeing what I should have noticed already: the livingstatues. A family stood, perfectly still in the entrance just outside the fast food restaurant, a couple held hands, forever, while walking on the pavement ahead. Two cars had collided, in a moment of inertia, when the drivers stopped moving, but the cars did not. Black smoke rose from one bonnet, curling in the air like a snake. Looking further ahead I saw a single, silver SUV, pinning a child to the wall of a clothing shop; he lay stiffly on the bonnet, like a shop manikin, except for the dark pooling liquid on the silver paintwork. His livingstatue mother stood nearby, unable to run to his rescue. The still running engine chugged along as if struggling.

  ‘No,’ I looked at Daniel who seemed fixated on the child on the bonnet of the car ahead of us; then I looked at the man on the floor whose skeleton had almost completely turned to ash; dust hovered around the pile as it settled, ‘what the hell is going on?’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Danny, suddenly broke from his stupor, like he had been jolted back to earth and pushed me towards the car, ‘get in’. He ran to the other side of the car, his boots sounding heavy on the concrete. Opening the door, he slid over to his seat, ‘Katy, get in’ he called

  ‘But the man, the child…’ I couldn’t go. They needed me.

  ‘Get in, now,’ with a sad glance of the pile of dust that had once been a man, I scrambled into the car, Daniel slammed down the accelerator, and tried to reverse us out the spot. But all around us were hazards - people standing in the way, cars no longer driven, pavements filled with livingstatues.

  ‘How are we getting past?’ Daniel gripped the steering wheel hard, his knuckles pointed and taut and drove the car onwards. Frantically I tried to spot all the possible hazards to warn Daniel,

  ‘Look out for the car,’ He fought with the car, swerving, avoiding pedestrians, taking pavements where needed,

  ‘Watch out’ I cried again,

  ‘Shut up,’ his voice growling and angry as he swerved to avoid a boy and his dog. The gruffness of the request silenced me instantly, but I felt like crying.

  He wrenched the steering wheel to the right, causing me to fall against him as he hopped the kerb and drove towards the exit. And then we were out of the retail park. But once on the main road, a scene of utter devastation faced us. Daniel stopped the car, putting on the handbrake and stared around, I felt as if we had driven onto the set of an apocalyptic movie; cars were piled up before us, some barely dented, others completely totalled. Smoke and fire seemed to fill the air, and yet all around, dozens of people stood silently still. Never moving or coming to the rescue of the injured.

  The cars made the roads impassable, and pedestrians made the pavements dangerous, I gazed, hoping just once to see a pedestrian move, but everyone stood so still, so silent, they might well have been statues.

  ‘What now?’ Daniel stared around him. For a while, we just sat there in the car with the engine running, chugging along as we stared out at the world. I felt safe inside, behind my reinforced windscreen. Almost like a spectator, watching the anguish of our fellow humans. But the smell of burning flesh seeped through the vents in the car, reminding me strangely of barbeques on long summer evenings. I could stand it no longer,

  ‘We can’t just sit here,’ I broke the silence,

  Danny looked me. ‘Motorbike,’

  ‘Or bicycle?’ I asked seeing the logic, the ease of which we could move around obstacles.

  ‘Definitely motorbike’ and for a second the Daniel I knew and loved appeared, but his eyes soon clouded with the memory of the what he had seen. We abandoned the car and went searching through the ruinous streets for a motorbike. I hated walking, passing by so many casualties, cars on fire, alarms blaring in the distance, the stench of death in the air. I wanted to be home, not living in this nightmare. Before long we saw a motorbike. It lay on its side next to a crashed mini, and the livingstatue lay on the road, his hands clinging to the bars and his legs still apart as if he were riding. The effect could have been comical, had we been in any mood to laugh. I just wanted to get home.

  ‘How do we move him, without touching him,’ Daniel crouched down and looked at him,

  ‘We can’t,’ he concluded standing up,

  ‘But…last time,’

  ‘I know ok’ he snapped. ‘I know, but it might not happen again.’ Softer this time.

  ‘No, we can’t. Let’s keep looking,’ Daniel stared at the man, the eyes stared back at us, ‘or we could walk? Just don’t please’ I pulled on his arm, ‘Daniel, we can walk, it’s not far,’ the relief swept over me when Daniel stood up, I often struggled to pre-empt his actions,

  ‘Fine,’ we started walking in silence, keeping our eyes open for motorbikes or bicycles.

  The walk home felt longer than I imagined. Dodging people was hard and when the world had stopped, every car had carried on, pile ups were everywhere. The smell of fire and twisted metal filled the air, statued people lay strewn across metal filled roads, hurt, or dead, but as stiff as manikins. It looked like a badly made film set. I saw children mangled, babies trapped in burning cars, lives precariously balancing; I could only stare until the sights began to sicken me, fil
ling my stomach with burning nausea. I held tightly onto Daniel’s hand and stared straight ahead too afraid to look around me and see the nightmare; I was walking through the wreckage of a thousand lives and a world that seemed to have gone completely insane.

  Eventually a pile of mangled cars blocked the main road, each one releasing clouds of toxic smoke that threatened fire; I stared at the back of a Volvo where two children sat, trapped beneath piles of metal and clouds of toxic fumes.

  ‘We can’t go through that,’ Daniel said staring at the thick, dark smoke, I looked at him,

  ‘But going the back way will take much longer,’

  ‘So? Have you got somewhere to be?’ I shook my head, not wanting admit how much I hated being out here. I took a lasting look at the children, one’s fiery red head pressed uncomfortably against the door of her car. We turned off into a side road.

  Although a longer walk meant more time outside, I preferred the small roads to the main ones. While there were still crashes and devastation, they didn’t seem as bad, maybe slowed by the lower speed limit.

  As we walked, I stared at each of the houses, could it be that each one of those contained nothing but livingstatues? I glanced through some windows as I walked, looking for signs of life in the stillness. One woman stood in her living room, mid exercise, her ample thighs covered in a stretchy black lycra skin, one knee raised as she worked out. I stopped to stare at her, wondering if she was uncomfortable standing in that position. Danny saw me stopped and stood by me,

  ‘Nice,’ he said laughing, staring at the woman’s lycra clad bottom,

  ‘Hey’ I nudged him with good-humour,

  ‘Just appreciating the female form,’ I shook my head and laughed but the laughter faded quickly,

  ‘Do you think everyone’s stopped? I mean everywhere? Every house, the entire world?’ his smile died down a bit, and he looked away from the woman in her private domain, the perfectly pink curtains outlining her like a painting,

  ‘I don’t know Katy, it can’t be, right? That doesn’t make sense. The rest of the world could be watching,’ I thought for a moment and then looked up into the empty sky, no helicopters which might indicate there were other’s moving and trying to help, no planes, nothing but the blue sky.