Forever

 Forever

  By

  Lee Moan

  * * * * *

  Copyright 2011 by Lee Moan

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art Copyright 2011 by Lee Moan

  *****

  Contents

  Forever

  Twelve Minutes

  Lazarus Island Excerpt

  About the Author

  Forever

  Two days before their third wedding anniversary, David Scarsdale stood in the open doorway of the breakfast room clutching a small brown overnight bag, watching his wife as she ate her breakfast. Crisp morning sunlight streamed in through the blinds, bathing her figure in a rosy glow. He let out a small sigh, a decision made, before smoothing down his silk tie and clearing his throat.

  “Portia,” he said, “I’m leaving you.”

  Unaware of his presence, she looked up from the breakfast table with a disoriented look, her mouth open. She had just taken a spoonful of Special Bran, and the sight of all that half-chewed fibre did nothing to help change his mind.

  “What?” she said.

  “I’m going,” he told her, finding it hard to meet her eye. “And I’m not coming back.”

  She let the spoon drop, hitting the edge of the cereal bowl with a sharp tong.

  “What? But . . . why?” she said, struggling with the food in her mouth.

  “I don’t love you anymore. I haven’t loved you for a long time. I’m sorry.”

  Portia placed her hands on the edge of the table as if steadying herself after a physical blow.

  “But I don’t understand. You never said anything.”

  “I wanted to tell you, Portia. Every day. I just . . . didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “What, so now you’ve decided it’s okay to hurt me?”

  “No!” The anger rose quickly but he forced it back down. “Look, Portia, it’s better that I go now and save us both a lot of heartache.”

  She stood up suddenly, sending her chair spinning across the laminate flooring. He expected an outburst, but she just stared at him, her anger giving way to bright bulbs of tears in her eyes.

  “Goodbye, Portia,” he said, before turning away and walking out into the hall.

  “David? David, wait!”

  He paused at the front door, his hand on the latch, and turned to face his wife.

  She stood in the middle of the hallway, her hazel eyes blurred by tears.

  “David,” she said, “you can’t do this. You can’t just walk out on me.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I am. I have to. I don’t expect you to understand, Portia, but I have to do this.”

  “Please,” she said, “just tell me what’s wrong and we can try and fix it.”

  He shook his head.

  Before she could say any more he spun the latch and yanked the door open. He hesitated in the open doorway, overwhelmed by the total absence of light from outside. As his momentum carried him forward, his free hand grabbed the door frame and stopped him just in time.

  The world outside the house was gone, and in its place was a vast sea of nothingness; a perfect black, stretching on and on forever.

  ***

  “David?” Portia was saying. “David, what’s the matter?”

  He stood in the open doorway, staring. He never knew his eyes could get so wide. Above, below, east and west (if there was even such a thing as east or west anymore), everything was gone. He leaned out as far out as he dared to study the front of the house: the upstairs windows, the expensive guttering, the roof slates. The house was completely intact, but everything else—the world, the universe—had vanished.

  Number 42, Harrison Gardens was floating in a pitch black void.

  “David!” Portia shrieked.

  He stepped back into the hallway, trying to block her view of the outside. He slammed the door and threw his back against it, staring at his distraught wife.

  Keep your cool, David.

  What was the office motto? If you keep your head whilst all around you are losing theirs, eventually you’ll be taller than everyone else.

  Hilarious.

  The office. He’d been expected in at eight. Brian and Gareth would be there by now. Maybe if he called them . . .

  He dropped his overnight bag on the hall carpet, ran past Portia to the table and snatched up the phone.

  Before he could dial his work number he realised there was no dial tone, just a long, heavy sigh escaping from the earpiece like a steady release of gas. He threw the phone back down.

  “This . . . This makes no sense,” he said to himself.

  He spent a few moments thinking over recent events, the past few days, trying to recall anything that might have caused such a calamity. But there was nothing. The past week had been the same as every other week before it: dull and miserable.

  “Portia?” he said, turning to his wife.

  She had stepped forward and unlatched the front door. It made a low creaking noise as it drifted open on its hinges. The oppressive blackness pressed in against them. Portia stared at it with wide eyes, dragging her fingers down the soft flesh of her cheeks.

  David marched over, slammed the door shut again and grabbed her shoulders.

  “Portia, now listen to me. I don’t know what’s happening here but we both need to keep calm.”

  She continued to stare ahead, staring through him. “Everything’s gone,” she said in a little girl’s voice.

  David shook his head. “Now we both know that’s impossible.”

  “But there’s nothing out there, David.”

  “I know, I know. I can’t explain it right now, but let’s just . . .”

  “You were going to leave me,” she said. Her eyes shifted focus slightly, coming to rest on him. “You were going to leave me, David.”

  The realisation hit him like a body blow. He let go of her and stumbled back.

  “Oh my God,” he said in a coarse whisper. “It’s you!”

  She took a faltering step towards him but he backed away, circling round her towards the stairs.

  “David,” she said, reaching for him. “Help me, David. I’m scared.”

  “You stay away from me,” he said, trying to turn his fear into anger to ward her off, but in the end he broke into a run, taking the stairs three at a time. On the landing he looked down at his wife. The household lamps made her shadow look monstrous, filling the lower floor like a deathly veil.

  “David!” she called up to him, tears running down her cheeks.

  He backed away into the spare bedroom and slammed the door, bolting it from the inside.