Greetings and salutations, faithful reader! Welcome back to Story Time With Tim! I’m Timothy Scott Purvis and this is the final part of Shiver, my horror novella inspired by Silent Hill! A lot has happened in the tale and you don’t need me to tell you what! Especially if you’ve been reading along! Have you not? Are you behind? Well, then check out the previous three postings’ links to get caught up!
Alright, now that we’re all caught up, let’s get to reading! Come back next week for another short story on Story Time With Tim! Hope you’ll be back to enjoy the offering too!
11
Sheridan burst through a door leading out of the dark corridor. He was halfway down another hall when the lights suddenly came back on. He stopped in puzzlement and hoped that the sudden change in the situation was a good thing. Several doors lined the hall but the one that interested him the most was the one at the end of the hall. So, it was there that he decided to go first.
Opening the door and entering the next room, Sheridan saw Cerise sitting at a computer typing away in oblivious silence. He couldn’t believe it. He had hoped to find the woman, but he was still shocked to see her here, just sitting and typing in solitude.
“Cerise? What the fuck are you doing? Why’d you leave and come back here?” he asked, dumbfounded and stared at the woman with his left hand semi-motioning towards the way he’d just come.
“Huh…?” Cerise looked at Sheridan blankly. ”I managed to get the electricity back on. And I still have to find out what happened. It’s all my fault.”
Cerise returned her attention to the keyboard in front of her, and stared at the monitor. Bluish light danced across her visage as her glasses reflected the work she was doing. Sheridan stared at her for a moment.
“Look, we have to leave. I just had a run-in with my ex, and I don’t think she was happy to see me,” he remarked, looking at the door briefly then returning his attention to the woman typing away neurotically.
“I can’t leave. There’s too much work to do. I… I can’t…” she said, hesitating momentarily.
Cerise stopped typing, her fingers perched inertly above the keys. She stared at the screen for a few moments. Then, slowly, she turned towards Sheridan and stared at him vacantly.
“How’d I get back here?” she inquired of the puzzled man staring back at her.
“I’m assuming you walked…” he replied.
Confused, Cerise stood and cast her gaze towards the floor. Something was wrong. She remembered following Sheridan to the road that led past town. Yet, she couldn’t remember how she got back. She stared at the cylindrical object in the next room over. The glass lay broken on the ground and that glowing persisted within the cylinder chamber. What happened? Can it…?
Sheridan glanced nervously at the door he’d come through and brought his weapon to bear. He heard a thumping.
“Cerise! We really need to go!” he shouted as the door burst open and a legion of hornets swarmed in, covering the walls and ceiling.
Panic ate its way into Sheridan’s consciousness as he stared in horror. The woman entered the doorway, actually gliding into the room like some sort of phantasm come to claim his soul. He tried to fire the weapon, forgetting he had already unloaded the gun.
“Shit!” Sheridan spat, not believing his luck as the woman before him laughed in spite.
Cerise stood still, her gaze still at the ground. Doesn’t she see them? Sheridan questioned himself, fear trembling its way through his body. The room was starting to go dark from the swarm covering the light fixtures. His ex-wife widened her arms as if to embrace him into the hellish afterlife she planned for him. He backed away from the woman, his nerve wavering.
“Oh darn,” Cerise calmly said.
How could I have been such a fool?
She climbed up onto the ledge where the glass had separated the room housing the cylindrical tower from the observation lab. She turned towards Sheridan as he looked at her in alarm. Demons were rising up through the floor before Cerise. Though Sheridan didn’t see them. She calmly smiled at him in a strangely reassuring way. He was speechless.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, as he instinctively raised his weapon towards his ex-wife who was slowly approaching him, and he knew it was a futile gesture.
“I’m sorry, Sheridan. This really is all my fault. I should have realized sooner… none of this is real,” she smiled even as the phantasmal demons approached her, shrieking their exasperations, “Quantum mechanics was never my specialty. I failed to consider what would have happened should we employ its means in the Earth’s gravity well. All our fears, all our shames… We’re just energy, you see. Energy… Energy is perception. And perception is how we view the world. Good bye… and good luck. Thank you for helping me.”
“What!? What the fuck does that mean!?” Sheridan practically shouted, not understanding what she was getting at. Cerise shook her head.
“We created the things we’re seeing now. They are only phantoms of our very real fears and the sorrows we refuse to let go. The pulse wave, Sheridan, I never survived the blast… and neither did anyone else, it originated with me… I can stop it now, my energy can… I believe.”
Sheridan could only watch her as Cerise held her arms wide and closed her eyes. She leapt backwards into the glowing void that was center of the cylindrical containment unit. Cerise made a secret wish as she plunged into its depths. My family… If only to shatter this wellspring of self-recriminating hate…
“Cerise!” Sheridan pushed himself towards her, dropping his gun, hoping beyond hope to grab her, but arriving all too late.
Her form dissipated into nothing as if she had never existed. He found himself suddenly alone. He looked around the room and found that his wife too had disappeared. Though that strange glow still persisted. What… the fuck?
12
Several hours later, Sheridan found himself walking alone, along the road leading away from town. He didn’t know what had happened and was still as confused as when he had awakened on that park bench. He had searched around the complex for Amanda, but couldn’t find her. Nor was there any further sign of life around Roanoke.
Energy is perception… What did it mean? There was no way of telling, even with the cryptic things Cerise had said before her plunge into that glowing abyss. Somehow, though, it was attached to the vision of his wife. Of those children. Of a fog infested town in the middle of a small, Appalachian community. And regardless of whatever he thought, his nightmare was over at least. Sometimes, there were things beyond human understanding. And he was in no mood to try to understand the events of this night. He stuck his right thumb out as a vehicle approached. Fortunately, the driver pulled over. It was a pickup with three young adults in it.
“Need a lift?” inquired the woman in the passenger side.
Sheridan cast a glance at the fog hanging over the woods in the near distance. Whatever Cerise had thought she could do, only ended the visions. The fog still remained and he had no desire to find out why. He looked back at the three people looking at him. One was in the truck bed.
“You have no idea… But, yeah,” Sheridan responded evenly with a shallow chuckle, placing his hand on the truck door.
“Where you heading?” the driver asked, a young male.
“Wherever. Anywhere but here,” he replied.
“Cool. Hop in the back,” the driver motioned towards his friend.
Sheridan happily did so. As he sat back and the truck pulled back onto the road, he couldn’t help but think on the events of the night. He didn’t want to, but things had a way of sneaking up on a person. Forcing one to recognize when something was beyond their understanding.
Energy… is perception. He let that roll around his head and lit up a cigarette. And perception is how we view the world. He wondered, not for the first time, just how it was he perceived his world. He blew out a puff of smoke into the clearing, morning air, realizing with an imperceptible laugh that he hadn’t completed his job, and just let it be as the town was left behind him far, far in the distance.
13
Amanda broke out towards a clearing away from the town. The door had led to a subterranean exit near the airport. It must have been for evacuation purposes. She was glad for that little bit of reprieve. The zombies had ceased chasing after her. Which she found odd. They had to still be there. They would never cease their pursuit of her. Not after everything she’d done in her life. Not after what she had done. Her boyfriend and that bitch he’d betrayed her for…
Billy… rot in hell, you bastard. You deserved what you got. The thought reverberated through her mind in joyful glee. A smile crossed her face as a thumping sound echoed through the still, morning air. A helicopter was coming. Was it salvation? Had they come to save her? From herself? From Billy? No. She wouldn’t let them. Wouldn’t let them take away her satisfaction. Not so long as she drew breath. Bring it on, you fuckers! She raised her hands to the heavens and laughed out loud as the helicopter flew overhead, nearing the landing.
And there you go, the story has unfolded in its entirety! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story! Remember, a whole new story is coming up next Friday so I hope to see you there! If you enjoyed this story, why not go purchase it on my Kindle site? Maybe even stick around and check out some of my other works while you’re at it, eh? Those links are below. But, even if you don’t, I appreciate your sticking around to check out my work! It means a lot!
See you soon!
~Timothy S Purvis
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You can also find it in my novella collection at:
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