Time & Space (Short Fiction Collection Vol. 2) by Gord Rollo, Gene O'Neill, Everette Bell
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species, is changing. We’re getting bigger, stronger, faster, and intelligent enough that we can now grab a petri-dish and a gene splicer, and take turns playing God. Right now, as we speak, unethical testing is taking place on human subjects, with hideous results. Humans are evolving into things that neither God, nor nature ever intended. And it will get much worse, before it ever gets better.
My great-great-grandfather kept his fears of evolution going haywire, and his dreams of myriad unnatural beasts running rampant throughout the world, hidden. He was scared and had his reputation to consider. I can respect that, but not for a minute do I agree with his stand. I think it was his responsibility – and now mine – to inform the public of all these unnamed, unknown, unpredictable things that are out there, waiting, biding their time until we let our guard down once too often.
This is the reason I’ve invited you here tonight. I have a proposition for you. Like Charles, I too suffer from terrible dreams about humanity’s future, which is why I’ve decided to dedicate my life to carrying on my famous ancestor’s legacy – scanning the globe for telltale signs that my family’s most secret fears are starting to come true. What will I discover on my own dark journey of discovery? To be honest I have absolutely no idea, but I’m hoping you’ll come with me, to join the hunt so to speak. What’s that? Where will we start? Well, that’s the easy part. We’ll start where all the best monster stories begin.
We’ll find somewhere dark…
STORY NOTES
This piece of fiction has always been one of my favorites and thought I’d put it here after you’ve read All That Glitters… because that strange species of subterranean golden men are exactly the type of unnatural things our good doctor Darwin will be out searching for out there in the dark. Hopefully he doesn’t find them – lol!
I’ve always loved stories and books where the writer takes real characters and events from history and spins something fantastic or horrific into what actually happened. I’ve written several historical horror stories like this and I’m currently working on a couple of much longer works in this same vein as well. This tale is actually an introductory story that I wrote for an evolutionary horror anthology I edited called UNNATURAL SELECTION: A Collection Of Darwinian Nightmares. I played with the ending a little here, just to give it more closure and feel more like a stand-alone short story but it’s a really good collection; one I’m very proud of. You might still be able to find it out there in Ebay and Amazon-land. Someday I’d like to release the ebook of this collection again but the logistics of finding all the authors again and getting them to give me permission to reprint their stories is going to have to wait until I’m a little less busy. I’ll work on it, though. Promise.
THE SUICIDE MAN
The alarm clock went off like a neutron bomb, ruthlessly assaulting the sleeping man’s nerves, jump starting him instantly awake. It wasn’t exactly good for the old ticker and definitely a bad way to start the day.
Simon Taylor rose out of bed only to fall into a deep black pit of depression upon opening his eyes. His first thought wasn’t a happy one.
I need to kill myself today. I can’t take this anymore. Everything’s the same… nothing has changed. Same old crappy bedroom in the same old crappy apartment.
His eyes scanned his surroundings just to be sure. He saw dirty bed sheets dotted with cigarette burns, cheap broken thrift shop furniture on a threadbare blue carpet, faded tacky wallpaper smeared with countless mildew stains running clear up to the crumbling ceiling which threatened to collapse down on him at any moment. No, nothing had changed. Simon was still in the same shithole as yesterday!
A ray of golden sunshine reflected into Simon’s eyes, drawing his attention to where it glinted off the surface of
My great-great-grandfather kept his fears of evolution going haywire, and his dreams of myriad unnatural beasts running rampant throughout the world, hidden. He was scared and had his reputation to consider. I can respect that, but not for a minute do I agree with his stand. I think it was his responsibility – and now mine – to inform the public of all these unnamed, unknown, unpredictable things that are out there, waiting, biding their time until we let our guard down once too often.
This is the reason I’ve invited you here tonight. I have a proposition for you. Like Charles, I too suffer from terrible dreams about humanity’s future, which is why I’ve decided to dedicate my life to carrying on my famous ancestor’s legacy – scanning the globe for telltale signs that my family’s most secret fears are starting to come true. What will I discover on my own dark journey of discovery? To be honest I have absolutely no idea, but I’m hoping you’ll come with me, to join the hunt so to speak. What’s that? Where will we start? Well, that’s the easy part. We’ll start where all the best monster stories begin.
We’ll find somewhere dark…
STORY NOTES
This piece of fiction has always been one of my favorites and thought I’d put it here after you’ve read All That Glitters… because that strange species of subterranean golden men are exactly the type of unnatural things our good doctor Darwin will be out searching for out there in the dark. Hopefully he doesn’t find them – lol!
I’ve always loved stories and books where the writer takes real characters and events from history and spins something fantastic or horrific into what actually happened. I’ve written several historical horror stories like this and I’m currently working on a couple of much longer works in this same vein as well. This tale is actually an introductory story that I wrote for an evolutionary horror anthology I edited called UNNATURAL SELECTION: A Collection Of Darwinian Nightmares. I played with the ending a little here, just to give it more closure and feel more like a stand-alone short story but it’s a really good collection; one I’m very proud of. You might still be able to find it out there in Ebay and Amazon-land. Someday I’d like to release the ebook of this collection again but the logistics of finding all the authors again and getting them to give me permission to reprint their stories is going to have to wait until I’m a little less busy. I’ll work on it, though. Promise.
THE SUICIDE MAN
The alarm clock went off like a neutron bomb, ruthlessly assaulting the sleeping man’s nerves, jump starting him instantly awake. It wasn’t exactly good for the old ticker and definitely a bad way to start the day.
Simon Taylor rose out of bed only to fall into a deep black pit of depression upon opening his eyes. His first thought wasn’t a happy one.
I need to kill myself today. I can’t take this anymore. Everything’s the same… nothing has changed. Same old crappy bedroom in the same old crappy apartment.
His eyes scanned his surroundings just to be sure. He saw dirty bed sheets dotted with cigarette burns, cheap broken thrift shop furniture on a threadbare blue carpet, faded tacky wallpaper smeared with countless mildew stains running clear up to the crumbling ceiling which threatened to collapse down on him at any moment. No, nothing had changed. Simon was still in the same shithole as yesterday!
A ray of golden sunshine reflected into Simon’s eyes, drawing his attention to where it glinted off the surface of
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