Issue #3
Sean Williams, Gareth L. Powell, Pavelle Wesser, Lee Gimenez, Terry Ray, G. O Clark, Andrew Males and Ashley Hibbert. Plus...
An interview with sci-fi author Jaine Fenn.
Excerpt:
Too Late. By Graham Storrs
There was that light again. It was like car headlights swinging by on the road – only there wasn't a road. Nothing for miles except their own drive. Michael checked his watch and went to the window. It was two AM. Should he wake Damian? What if it was prowlers? But he couldn't bring himself to do that, not after the row they'd just had.
Damian's gun was in the cupboard in the utility room but it was locked and the key was on Damian's keyring – which would be in the pocket of his shorts. Anyway, it was probably just lightning. Out here in the mountains a storm could creep up on you without you noticing.
Beyond the window the night was solid black, as if reality ended at the walls of the house, as if Michael and Damian were adrift in space in a brick-built spaceship. These days, to Michael, it often seemed like that even during the daytime. Maybe he should turn the light out so he could see better? As it was, all he saw through the window was his own, dark, image badly reflected.
He made himself walk away from the window and sit down again. Half-glimpsed lights in the darkness! He tried to laugh at himself. He was just feeling unsettled and vulnerable because of how things were with Damian at the moment. That's all it was. And so unlike him to start imagining things. He was supposed to be the sensible one. The mature one. God knows, Damian had enough fecklessness for both of them!
This got him brooding once more about the letter he'd found and Damian's stupid, childish attempts at denial. He chewed his lower lip as he remembered the shouting and the crying. He cringed at how he had humiliated himself with accusations and recriminations, demanding kindness, pleading for justice, all but begging for love. And worst of all was the distaste – disgust even – that he had seen in Damian's eyes as Michael had ranted and sobbed and tried to understand. To forgive.
When Damian had finally stormed off to his room and slammed the door, Michael had been outraged, cut to the bone, but also drained and glad of the chance to sit alone as the night grew old, licking his wounds.
