Voices: A Study in … What?

Of all the works I’ve written, published or not, Voices remains one of my personal favourites. It’s also, in my opinion, one of the best I’ve ever turned out.

At 110,000 words, with scenes of sex and violence, and strong language, this is no cosy STAC Mystery.

What, exactly, is it?

Categorising Voices, is as big a nightmare as Chris Deacon’s (the central character) adventures. Is it sci-fi? Well, partly. Is it horror? Hmm, could be. Is it a psychological thriller? Possibly.

Like many of my works, Voices takes an ordinary man, this time a college tutor, and throws him into an extraordinary situation. So much of the detail is commonplace: his life, his marriage, friendships. But they’re torn apart when he survives a bomb attack at the college, and finds himself haunted by two phantoms; a soldier, whom he names Colonel Gun, and a tiny yet monstrous dwarf whom he names Egghead.

Left impotent and partially deaf after the explosion, he also begins to hear voices, and they’re ordering his life.

Ah, you say, post-traumatic stress disorder. A natural assumption, but is it right?

I’m not going to tell you.

What I will say is that Voices attracts consistently high ratings even from readers who don’t like sci-fi, horror, paranormal, psychological thrillers. Reader dkm1981, says, ‘I’m not one for the supernatural. I find all things ghostly a tad far-fetched and unbelievable’ and yet (s)he gave Voices five stars having… ‘found myself understanding the situation and believing it to be the truth’.

To help you make up your mind, here is a short extract from the book.

Chris is about to leave the hospital, the first survivor of the attack to do so, and it’s happening in blaze of media attention. Totally deaf, communicating via a Nokia smartphone, and accompanied by his wife, Jan, and Angela Heysham, a hospital administrator, he is led into a briefing room to face the press.

***

I’d anticipated a few reporters from the local rags begging for a few minutes of my time. Instead, the stroboscopic flash of cameras and powerful glare of TV lights greeted me as I walked into the room and I almost collapsed. There were at least a hundred people facing the trestle tables where Jan, Ms Heysham and I sat.

I trembled, but it had nothing to do with the surprise assembly. Sitting before a crowd of reporters and cameramen was no different to standing before a class of children in need of answers to their questions.

It was the silence: a silence so complete that it was deafening. I could feel my heart beating, but I could not hear it. I could feel the scrape of my chair on the floor as I sat, but I could not hear it. And when the spokeswoman read from her prepared statement and everyone in the room fell silent, I knew that none of them experienced it as totally as me. I knew what Angela Heysham was saying, but I could not hear it.

“Mr Deacon’s injuries are minor; a hairline fracture of the right medial malleolus … a broken ankle … a bump on the back of his head, and some cuts and bruises. We are, however, concerned on two fronts. He is unable to hear. We will be carrying out tests to ascertain the extent of any noise damage to the cochlear. He is also suffering from shock induced temporary aphasia. He is unable to speak. We will monitor the situation but we are confident that he will make a full recovery.”

Angela threw the interview to the media and even though I could hear nothing, I felt like she had thrown me to the lions.

The press, as if they had not heard a word about my deaf/mute condition, bombarded me with questions. I felt panic rising in me. I saw concerned and eager faces, mouths moving to deliver words, greedy eyes fixed on me, but it meant nothing. They could have been asking what I had for dinner, what I thought of England’s chances for the 2010 World Cup, whether I was looking forward to jumping my wife again, anything.

Jan fielded almost all of their questions. Her hand clinging to mine, she became my anchor in this twisted reality. Without her I would be jelly, a small child, bereft of hearing, voice and sanity, overwhelmed by an adult world that made no sense. But she remained cool and in control. Once or twice she translated questions to the Nokia for me, simple ones to which I could nod or shake my head. Now and then, I saw a frown cross her face before she let loose with a tight-lipped response.

Ms Heysham dealt with the more awkward, medical type questions, and after a quarter of an hour a team of burly security guards escorted us through a throng of reporters, to Tony’s waiting car. With the press jostling, thrusting their cameras forward to get pictures, throwing out questions I could not hear, I began to panic again. Our minders opened the car doors. I tossed my crutch into the front seat, Jan climbed in the back and I eased my injured leg in.

Closing the door, I avoided the cameras by looking straight ahead through the windscreen and there was Egghead less than twenty yards away, leaning against a “No Parking” sign.

Tony sped off. Some of the press hurried to their cars to follow. I tried to relax. How long before they would let me be? How long before these disturbing hallucinations stopped? How the hell had I become mixed up in this madness?

***

Voices is published by Crooked Cat Books and is available for download from:

Amazon UK (Kindle)

Amazon Worldwide (Kindle)

Smashwords (all formats)

Crooked Cat Books (EPUB, MOBI, PDF)

And in paperback from

Amazon UK

Amazon Worldwide