Acid Bubbles (41 page)

Alice never thought she'd find love again. Like so many others she'd spent a short time on an Internet dating site, eventually forcing herself out to date people she knew she wouldn't like after ten minutes. This only lasted five dates and she closed her account.

Now, in the bright white sunshine of the Sierra Nevada, unexpected love had come to Alice in the form of a man called Peter Robert Jackson. She couldn't believe that they just clicked from the first moment they set eyes on each other. The short hours they skied together was the most satisfying time she'd had in years. She knew within minutes of their first encounter this man was “the one”. An instant connection as if they'd known each other intimately in another life, and she knew in her heart Peter felt the same about her.

Everything had gone well until she walked to the car. Alice had stopped to talk to Peter on the phone for no reason other than to hear his voice. Their car was parked a fair distance away and illuminated under bright lights; it was standing in glassy water. The others were making their way towards it. She had to stop walking to talk with Peter because with the car park was icing over and she feared falling on the slick surface. Alice talked for a few minutes holding the others up.

The car horn sounded and Alice made quick sincere promises to Peter. They would be together again within a matter of days. She knew it was their fate. The car horn sounded again and she rushed to climb into its warmth, the engine now running.

She never made it. Slipping on the ice she went down hard on the edge of a kerb. As she hit the ground with a terrible force and Alice heard a cracking sound, her femur was broken. She didn't know if it was audible or she'd heard it inside her head, but it was loud! It was hurting like hell but at least it wasn't a compound fracture. “A straight break”, as the doctor told her later. Her friends crowded round the bed wishing her well before they rushed off to the airport, only four in the car instead of five.

After everyone had gone Alice looked for her phone. It was only then she realised that during the fall she'd landed heavily on her smart phone, shattering the screen. She couldn't contact the first person she thought of. This wasn't one of her sons, or her brother, or any of the party of twelve skiers over from England for a birthday celebration long weekend.

Alice only wanted to talk to Peter. Her SIM card would go in a spare phone in the next couple of days. Then she would contact him again, though she suspected he would attempt to contact her well before then. Peter had collected two or three phone numbers from the group so contact wouldn't be lost. Realising this Alice breathed a sigh of relief; he was already an essential part of her life.

Everything would turn out to be amazing in the end. Breaking a leg! What a way to end a perfect day.

Do you want to save the world? David Spencer certainly didn't think this was his destiny.

He sees himself as very ordinary, an average teenager, not physically strong, and shy. His broken family move to a distant coastal town. Downcast by the move his spirits improve as he becomes closer to his brother Richard, and encounters the iridescent Daisy. With his new friends David becomes involved in a protest to stop a bypass destroying the magical and ancient woodland protected by a Giant. All around that ancient place a strange madness is developing; a slow creeping insanity.

His new home close to the woodland has a history of strange happenings. Things become disturbing when his brother goes missing. Half strangled voices demand retribution against a mysterious figure for the return of Richard. The quiet teenager discovers he's been elected as the only one who can help. At first David doesn't realise he's slowly absorbing the madness – becoming ever more savage in his efforts to free his brother from alien abduction.

Digging deep into it twisted pit of violence after more people are abducted David fights back – he faces a life or death showdown with help from his onetime adversary the Giant.

Both face death second by second in the final battle against the strange force that inhabits the woodland. Not everyone would survive…

Mortimer Sands has spent most of his thirty seven years cloistered away on his mother's large estate. He knows little of the world, only understanding what his mother – who claims to be a virgin – has told him. Determined to meet others he embarks on a pilgrimage to Santiago De Campostilla. An innocent abroad – Mortimer could almost be the reincarnation of Christ himself. Early in the walk he is befriended by a small dog who watches over him, keeping him safe?

Daily, as he walks, he relives his strange formative years – bathing in black tulip petals, creatures with snakes in his garden, strange thoughts that enslave him. And at night he is tormented by the physical and the non-physical. He encounters a couple who take terrible advantage of his innocence, treating him almost like their slave. With the help of Gladys U Plymsoul he escapes their clutches. His jolly bubbly friend is not all she seems – she wants Mortimer in a very personal way. She wants to drag him towards Satan himself.

Naked and with her physical lust unsatisfied she attempts to murder Mortimer. She thinks he's dead… On awakening he seeks out Gladys to show her the truth. And reveals his true self…