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’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 173, of 240 so far.

Sympathy

Billy had always assumed that dying would be more frightening than this. Or at least painful. But apparently not.

The method of his demise was certainly unexpected. He’d suffered a fatal stroke while leaving a Chinese takeaway place not far from his flat, and had fallen to the ground just before he reached the edge of the pavement to cross the street. He’d never had any cardiovascular problems in his entire forty-eight years, and he’d been feeling fine. Despite the best efforts of passers-by and the emergency services, he never regained consciousness.

Besides the stroke itself, the surprising thing was that he now found himself sitting in a small room with bare, shabby walls. He was on a hard plastic chair, the kind you’d find in any waiting room in the world, and there was no-one else with him. There was a clock on the wall, but it had stopped.

The first instinct that rose up in Billy was to find something to steal. He’d spent his life taking things from others, things that weren’t his to take, and never giving a single thought to the consequences. He had done a few short stretches inside for petty theft, dealing in stolen goods, and so on, but he always got back out again. Most of the time, he got away with it clean and clear.

The thing was, he knew that he had died. Somehow, he was certain of it. The idea was fully formed and inescapable in his mind, which presented the critical problem of why he was still apparently able to sit on a chair, and look around a room, and generally do the things that he’d done when he was still alive. He’d thought that death would be more still, and quiet, and dark.

The door of the room opened, and a man came in. He was wearing a drab suit, and seemed to be of that indeterminate span of age between thirty-five and forty-five which drab suits so easily put men into. He was carrying a sheaf of papers, he had spectacles perched on his nose, and he seemed distracted. Billy immediately saw him as a mark; a person to be manipulated for personal gain.

“Good morning,” the man said, not looking at Billy yet as he examined the topmost document in the pile he was holding. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Billy’s mind raced as he tried to find an angle of approach with this person, but the overriding conclusion was that he was in some kind of afterlife, and was about to be judged. He wasn’t especially concerned about that eventuality, either. He’d always managed to finesse and evade and manipulate situations to his advantage before. This was just a higher-stakes version of the same universal scenario.

“Take your time,” Billy said, and the man nodded absent-mindedly, flipping the top sheet over to check something before returning it to its original orientation. At last, the man looked up, and Billy immediately noticed that he had a glass eye.

Billy felt something he could only vaguely remember from his early childhood, something so distant and indistinct in his memory that it took him several moments to identify it. He realised that, for the first time in the major part of his life, he was looking at the face of another human being and feeling sympathy. It was deeply unsettling.

“What happened to your eye?” he blurted out, giving no thought to the etiquette which governed such things, and the man gave a sad smile.

“I had an accident when I was seven years old,” the man replied. “In a play park. It was no-one’s fault, really. The doctors said I was lucky not to have died.”

Billy swallowed thickly, perturbed and uneasy at how affected he was by the man’s life experiences. He couldn’t help but visualise this stranger as an innocent little boy, enjoying the carefree play of a child, when suddenly the boy gained the terrible knowledge that life can sometimes hurt you even if you’ve done nothing to deserve it, and that sometimes the hurt is so bad that you’ll never again be the way you were before. A happy day, one amongst many, suddenly turned into a tragic, hideous milestone that would forever divide a young life into the time before, and the much longer time after.

“I’m sorry,” Billy said, not even taking a moment to note that he had never before spoken those words with sincerity to another living being. He wanted to do something for this man, but he knew there was nothing he could offer, and he had to blink and look away as he took steadying breaths. The man’s voice brought his attention back to his surroundings.

“You took advantage of people all your life, Billy,” the man said, and there was something in the voice now that hadn’t been there before. A dark warmth, almost lascivious, and the change was shocking. The man’s one remaining eye glittered as Billy looked at him once more.

“Thousands, over the years,” the man continued, waving the sheaf of paper. “So much suffering and sadness. Quite marvellous. I admire your dedication. You’re a psychopath of incredible prolificness.”

Billy was shuttling rapidly between emotions, unable to settle on anything for long enough to formulate a response. The man turned to the door, beckoning Billy to follow him.

“Rules are rules, though,” the man said, his fingers on the door handle. “We do things a certain way. And you’ve more than earned your place here with us for the rest of eternity.”

He turned the handle and opened the door, and Billy saw a vast structure beyond, with corridors of white, and vaulted ceilings soaring above an atrium with dozens upon dozens of mezzanine levels. Everything sparkled in sunlight from far above. The air was clean and fresh-scented. As his eyes adjusted to the onslaught of brightness, Billy could make out signs on the walls at irregular intervals.

Oncology. Radiology. Paediatric High-Dependency.

The largest hospital he’d ever seen. Vast beyond understanding. Perhaps even without end.

Images swam into Billy’s mind unbidden, of the sick patients and their distraught loved-ones, and he felt his lip tremble with the tidal wave of pity and empathy that surged up within him. He sank to his knees.

The other man’s eyes — both of them, now — blazed as if reflecting flames from a fire deep inside him. His grin was wicked, and too wide for his face. He was a creature wearing the appearance of humanity, but there was nothing human about him.

He leaned down until his lips were almost touching Billy’s ear, and his breath carried the reek of smouldering coals.

“For you, Billy, hell is caring about other people.”

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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