On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’d love to have you as a subscriber to the weekly free story. You can subscribe via email here. Unsubscribe any time, from the link in every issue.

You can also get the entire collection of stories as a set of epub files for your favourite reader device: an overall collection, and also genre-specific volumes!

Here's story 281, of 288 so far.

Please note: permission is expressly denied to input any part of the story below into a machine learning (ML) or artificial intelligence (AI) or Large Language Model (LLM) system in any form.

Decision

When the doors of the lift opened, Darren Grey stepped out, walked for about ten feet, and then stopped.

The ground floor of the shopping centre was almost indistinguishable from either of the two levels above, except that the shops were a little more noticeably low-rent. In this particular area, he had three possible destinations within sight: the exit, a chain coffee shop, or a pretzel stand.

Choices, he thought. Lots of little choices.

Life was full of them. He’d made many today already.

The choice to reschedule a meeting that was unlikely to be useful. The choice to use the free time to walk to the nearby shopping centre, enjoying a rare sunny day. The choice to spontaneously browse for some possible gifts for his wife’s birthday next month, even though he’d usually buy something online.

The choice to visit the second floor, and wander past the jeweller’s window display. The choice to turn, at just the right moment — just the wrong moment — and see the couple standing on the opposite balcony, outside a pizza restaurant that adjoined a sportswear shop, locked in a passionate kiss.

The man was vaguely familiar from the handful of office social events he’d attended with his wife’s work colleagues, but Darren couldn’t remember his name. The woman was called Sarah.

Sarah, who Darren had spoken to only hours earlier. Sarah, whose slender hands cradled the back of the other man’s head and neck with a tenderness that was apparent even from this distance. Sarah, who was supposed to be at a yoga class. Sarah, who was Darren’s wife.

He walked towards the exit.

Out onto the street, and another choice: left or right? He chose right, for no reason other than that he would normally go left, towards home.

He’d stood motionless outside the jeweller’s for a full minute, watching them. He felt himself going through disbelief, denial, and then a profound nausea that had him glancing around for the nearest bathroom — but the feeling had passed, replaced with what he knew was probably shock. His fingers tingled, and his cheeks, and his forehead; crawling with pins and needles. On autopilot, he pulled his phone from his pocket, and typed out a text message to Sarah.

Let me know when your class is finished.

He tapped Send, and a moment later he heard her message tone from across the gallery, shattering any lingering doubt. She pulled the device from her jeans, glanced at it, and pocketed it again. The other man said something, and she just shook her head and then tugged on his hand, and they walked off side by side. An insane image had flashed across Darren’s mind — chasing after them, but moving as silently as he could, until he was within grabbing distance of the man, and then… — but that was madness. That wasn’t going to happen. There would be no confrontation in public. So he’d stepped into the lift instead.

The sky was still clear and blue, and the sunlight warmed his skin. A perfect day, at least potentially. But not in reality.

Darren walked, more slowly than usual, and in a daze. He felt detached; untethered. They’d been married for nine years, and things were fine. Or they’d seemed to be. But obviously not.

A left turn, this time, and a pedestrian crossing. Past a barber’s shop, then along a short alley connecting to another major road. Restaurants and cafes. Gift shops. A florist. And people, everywhere, going about their lives. He walked on.

Another crossing, and Darren abruptly turned right and went down a side street. There were rows of bins in various colours, depending on the type of waste they were intended for. A vent from a kitchen poured water vapour and cooking smells into the air. There were cobblestones here, and they were black and slick-looking. A pigeon pecked intently at nothing, not even bothering to give Darren a wide berth as he passed.

The side street ended in a sort of enclosed square, just as deserted as the street itself. There was a delivery entrance for the department store which took up most of the next block, but the rest of the buildings looked disused. There were black bin bags sitting on a nearby kerb, but they had puddles of rainwater in the hollows of the plastic, so they’d been sitting there for a while. There was an old filing cabinet that probably weighed more than Darren himself, with one of its hefty drawers lying alongside. And there was a metal mesh gate that was fastened with a padlock.

No way forward.

He looked around aimlessly, and then drifted over to the filing cabinet. He had one at home, too, but much smaller and more modern. It was the household information cabinet. Bank statements, the mortgage, insurance, council letters, driving licenses and passports, and so on; the artefacts of a shared life. Or the detritus, now, he supposed.

Darren wasn’t sure what made him bend over and pick up the surprisingly weighty drawer. He wasn’t sure what made him stagger over to the mesh gate with it in his arms. He wasn’t sure what made him swing it downwards, striking the padlock on his first try, shattering both the loop and hasp as if they were made of plastic.

He looked around, suddenly guilty, but there was still no-one there except the pigeon, which watched him carefully for a long moment and then returned to its own business. Darren was about to set the drawer down, but some obscure instinct made him carry it back over and put it back where he’d found it. He returned to the gate, kicked the fragments of the padlock out of sight, opened the gate, and stepped through before closing it behind him.

There was an office building beyond, unlit and obviously empty. The nearby door, unbelievably, was unlocked — but then the gate had kept it sealed up until now.

This isn’t like me, he thought, but the fact seemed unimportant as he stepped inside.

The building smelled of dust and mildew. There were patches of black condensation on the wall of the entrance hallway, and a sign indicating a stairway through another door.

Ahead, or up? One more choice.

Up. The stairway was dark, but not dangerously so. He bypassed the first floor he reached and instead went up to the second, before stepping out into what had clearly been an open-plan office. There were faint marks on the floor where desks had stood, and two of the windows still had blinds attached, rolled up haphazardly.

Darren walked across the empty space, his footsteps muffled by the thin carpeting. He reached a window and looked out, realising that this place overlooked the same street as the department store. People milled around below, unaware of his scrutiny. They were outside, but he was the one who felt like he was outside, trapped behind an invisible barrier that separated him from the life that had been perfectly fine until this morning. Or seemed to.

He leaned his forehead against the glass for a moment, but it was cold, so he stepped back. A moment later, his phone beeped with a text message.

Darren withdrew the device from his coat pocket, and looked at the notification on the lock screen. The message was from Sarah.

Class running a bit late; quick break. Going to stay for the next one too. See you tonight.

“No you won’t,” he said aloud, almost flinching at the loudness of his voice in the silence.

Then he heard something that made him forget all about the message, and his phone, and his cheating wife. It was a stealthy sound; the faintest rustle, from behind. Definitely in the same large room. Movement. He spun around.

The stranger had his hands in the pockets of his long, nondescript coat. He wore jeans, and incongruously bright orange Nike trainers, faded from use. On his head, he wore a baseball cap in plain navy blue. His back was against the far wall, thirty feet away. His head was tilted forward as if he was contemplating the floor in front of him, and the brim of the cap hid his face. His posture was relaxed.

“Hello, Darren,” he said.

Darren felt his heart flutter in his chest for a moment. He squinted at the other man, and he thought the voice might be familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“I… do I know you?” he asked, gripping his phone more tightly. He wondered if he could call the police quickly enough, if he needed to. Probably not. The other man just shrugged, then gave a deep sigh before moving unhurriedly away from the wall and towards him. His head was still down, and his hands remained in his pockets. He was clearly in no rush. He stopped when he was ten feet away.

The stranger raised his head slowly, and the first thing Darren noticed was that he had a short beard. The next thing he saw was that there was an old scar on his left cheek, and that his cheekbones were clearly visible. Then the man raised his head fully, and the final thing Darren noticed was that the stranger wasn’t a stranger, and was in fact also Darren.

The other man looked him up and down wearily, his eyes settling on the phone in Darren’s hand. He nodded towards it as he opened his mouth to speak.

“You’re about to make a very poor decision,” he said.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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