Last Days

by Adam L.G. Nevill

Into her came a sudden invasion of regret, and its attendant hopelessness. Living with the consequences of actions committed before reason and experience had much say in anything felt familiar enough to be tedious.

Kyle woke into darkness and called out for God.

More of a maw than a mouth hung open, as if to gulp at the air or utter a shriek of joy.

Scepticism was a luxury for the unaffected.

The prospect of financial ruin had tainted the last two years of his life. And it seemed typical, if not fitting, that a sudden windfall should only arrive at the end of his days.

The people sat down to dine, and those others over there – that girl with the nose ring who laughed into her phone, the man who read the book in the window of the pub, the bus full of listless faces – they were in a parallel dimension. One he’d foolishly slipped out of and now could not get back inside, even though he yearned and scrabbled to do so.

This is how the world was when you knew it was terminal.

It seems Katherine’s delight in devising slow torments had not abated.

How had they learned to understand electricity? Like vermin, determined to gain access to a source of food, that’s how.

‘You weren’t much help, Spielberg. They ain’t easy to catch. Least you could’ve done was film it.’