Shi: A Dark Adventure into Living Forever Read online

  To A, K, and M, love you guys.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  SHI

  First edition. April 5, 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 C.F. Villion.

  Written by C.F. Villion.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  “Eternity is only a vodka shot away.” | Eliza Beckett Taylor

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

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  To A, K and M, love you guys.

  “Eternity is only a vodka shot away.”

  Eliza Beckett Taylor

  One

  ––––––––

  I backed away quickly from the corpse at my feet, the pool of his blood dangerously close to touching my shoes. As much as I hadn't meant to do it, none of that would matter if they could link me to his death. Regardless of the scum, he turned out to be, the fact that he was dead by my hand would suffice.

  I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. What the hell was I supposed to do with the body? How was I going to hide it? In life, he had been a big man and in death, he loomed even larger.

  The quiet snick of a lighter igniting killed the protective silence the garden had maintained. For our rendezvous had moved us to the deepest and darkest part of the massive old garden. Away from the noise of the party.

  I whipped around and saw the glow of a cigarette lighting a nearby darkness. It might as well have been the headlights of a car and I a deer caught in it.

  "Well, that was interesting. Not exactly where I saw things going." A deep baritone emanated from the dark brush.

  "Me neither, but my options were limited."

  That was good, I sounded much calmer than I felt. Of course, unless I got lucky and lightning struck twice this was it for me. Surely this stranger would inform the police and by morning, I would be nothing but a headline and an embarrassment to my cheating husband.

  I clung tightly to the rock I had used to bash in my assailant's head. It was the only thing tethering me to the world and possibly I could stun the smoking stranger and get away.

  "If you say so. From where I stood, you had others available, but you chose to hit him in the head with a rock."

  "No, no, I didn't want him to die! I wanted to stop him, and it seemed faster that way."

  He merely grunted, followed by a faint rustle as he left the protective cover of the brush and darkness to join me in the pool of moonlight.

  But instead of looking at me he was taking in my handiwork, I backed away and kept my rock slightly behind me. My fingers were sore, but there was zero chance of letting it drop to the ground now.

  At long last he looked up at me and a small smile played about his lips, it wasn't pleasant. I knew it boded ill for me, and my heart sank, as my rock came up.

  Unfortunately, I was easily disarmed, and when my rock flew away and landed far away in the darkness, I was screwed. I knew he would have whatever he wanted and would then hand me over the first opportunity he had.

  "Now, now Rabbit, there's no need for that."

  He abruptly let me go and stepped back while I stumbled and almost stepped into the still-growing puddle of blood. Eventually, though I regained my footing and stood with my arms tightly held against my chest. I was shivering, fear and shock vying for supremacy.

  "What are you planning on doing with his body?" He asked quietly. I looked down and stared in shock. The stranger had hooked his shoe under my assailant's head and lifted.

  "I don't know; I was thinking of maybe getting a shovel and just sticking him in the newly dug bed for the roses," Of course I hadn't thought that but this stranger was working on my nerves.

  "I see, and would you perhaps require some assistance with that?"

  Was he serious? I didn't detect any sarcasm in his tone, but my current condition made me an unreliable judge. I nodded, not trusting my voice for a moment.

  "Yes, I do need some assistance. Would you be willing to help me?"

  I knew there would be a punch line, after all, was said and done, but I had no guess what it could be. He inhaled deeply and exhaled his horrid smoke all over me.

  "Very well, lead the way to the shovels."

  Later, after we had dug up the carefully laid out rose bed and dumped the body, we stood silently in front of the newly covered grave I had reservations.

  I turned to face the stranger that helped me bury a despicable man and hoped that I wasn't getting into bed with someone worse. He looked at the rosebed turned grave and shrugged.

  "It will have to do. Now then Rabbit, we need to get back to the party. But I would like to meet with you tomorrow evening. To discuss our unique arrangement."

  I nodded, not trusting what I would say to him. I wanted to scream and cry, to beg for him to shut up, not tell anyone. But begging never solved anything and I was currently not in a position to make demands.

  He pulled out a small card and wrote something on it after which he thrust it into my hand. In the dim light, I couldn't make out what he had written.

  "Meet me there tomorrow after your husband returns to his office."

  It was fucking worse than I had thought initially; my heart was thundering as I watched him return to the main house and disappear.

  ###

  I was pulled out of my reverie when the waitress dropped my coffee on the table. It slopped over the side and narrowly missed my tablet.

  "So sorry about that Dearie," The waitress smiled unpleasantly and walked away.

  The tablet held my task for the day, the one that was sure to destroy the life I'd built thus far. I sighed and moved it away from the rich stream of doom crawling towards it.

  There were a lot of people in the dinky little restaurant considering the time of day. It was late; so late that it was almost early again. Some looked as tired and weary as I did, but there were the few others that looked fresh and at the beginning of their day. And what a way to start the day, at the tail end of the previous one.

  After I had taken care of the spill, I leaned my forehead against the window. Rain slid down the other side cooling the glass, but not making it icy. I sorely needed frosty glass.

  I deserved dark and stormy; I had earned it. Instead, I had a drizzle, and certainly no thunder and lightning. There was an insulting pitter-patter against the window.

  I stood on a precipice, the known behind me and a dark yawning unknown ahead o
f me. I could very quickly retreat to the known and just do the damn task as assigned. But it was family, or as near as I had ever managed to get.

  ###

  The booth seat was leather and brand new; I wagered I was one of the first people to sit in it. I'd never been to this part of the city before; it took me out of my comfort zone.

  Dinner was horrible, I had overcooked everything and despite that my husband hadn't noticed a thing. He frowned at the food but said nothing. A polite thank at the end of the meal, which lasted exactly thirty minutes and he headed out my door.

  I had timed it on previous occasions and dinner followed a set pattern and lasted the same amount of time. Thirty minutes got me polite chit-chat about the day, weather and the state of the next door neighbours' garden.

  I didn't give a fuck about any of that, but our marriage had degraded to this state. He didn't want to fix things but chose another woman instead. So this polite nonsense was all I got for giving my love to him.

  A coffee cup landing on the table interrupted my contemplation about the state of my miserable marriage. It slopped over the side and onto the table.

  "Sorry about that, let me get you a napkin for it." The young waitress rushed off. I moved my mobile out of the way.

  "Hello, Rabbit."

  The stranger didn't wait for my permission and slipped right into the booth opposite. I had no words for this man, and I couldn't greet him. He laughed and shook his head.

  The waitress was back and mopped up the spill before taking his order. After she had left he sat back and we sat in silence. An unbearable silence that I thought would never end.

  "So Rabbit, is this how it's going to be then?"

  I shook my head, "I don't know, not who you are and not what's going on."

  "Easily remedied," He stuck a hand across to me, "My name is Bill, and you are Eliza. And I'm here to offer you an exciting opportunity."

  Two

  I looked down at my tablet and stared at the screen, the task app flashed with menace. Who knew an app could feel loaded with menace? I still had to press accept, and the Accept and Refuse buttons loomed large on my screen.

  The tablet would be useless until I selected a button, but for the life of me, I didn’t know which one it would be. My instinct was to press Refuse and let the chips fell where they would. What then, though? No one ever refused a task as far as I knew.

  A refusal was unheard of; the manufacturers showed their displeasure in only one way. Dose Denial. Something we all feared and everyone knew the stories, someone that disobeyed and was punished.

  I was still young enough that I'd never seen a dose denial, never been witness to the worst possible end a Shi addict could get. The working theory was that it only happened once every hundred years or so, at the end of the latest group’s tenure.

  My attention returned to the app, would it be as simple as a new task showing up or would the nanites regulating my dose dispersal receive an instruction? A simple kill order that would make them leave the injection site and eat a hole in my brain?

  I shuddered and gingerly probed the sore spot at the back of my neck, just inside the hairline. It was the injection site for Shi, and it never healed. Another means of control asserted by the Man.

  It was always sore area and a continuous reminder of the price of immortality. Or apparent immortality.

  Lately, I’d been wondering if true immortality lay at the end of our tenure. Or if the stories were, in fact, warnings that we were too dense to take seriously. That dose denial wasn’t punishment for disobedience but, in fact, the inevitable result of servitude.

  Currently, there were sixteen of us young ones; eight dose admins and seven others like me. Ones that took care of whatever tasks the manufacturers or the Man deemed necessary. In my case persuasion and clean up.

  Once upon a time, I did courier runs, harmless things. I hear you, though, as innocuous as things could be when involved in the drug trade. Of course, this wasn’t a drug known outside of a very particular and unique community.

  My first foray came a few nights after my encounter with Bill at the diner. He convinced me that his offer was the most exciting thing ever to come my way and that I would regret nothing. I slipped out with Bill three nights later, on my birthday.

  I felt light that evening, carrying nothing with me. I hadn’t reminded my husband and so naturally he forgot about my birthday. To him, it was just another day, same as all the others. A dinner that he barely noticed and after which he returned to the office.

  An office where his secretary waited for him with arms wide open. Of course she hadn't reminded him of the date, it would have interfered with her after-dinner plans. The bitch.

  After he had left, I dressed in my favorite outfit and waited eagerly and filled to the brim with excitement for Bill’s knock at my door. When it finally came, I was lightheaded and giddy, and practically ran to open for him.

  Much of my self-loathing goes into that my immortal life started that way. It still made me feel sick, and the need for a shower increased ten fold after such thoughts.

  Tonight I didn’t feel like a young one, I felt my age. And I was confident that I looked worn and old sitting there in my booth nursing a cup of coffee. Did the older ones ever go through this? Confronted with crap that had the potential to sap your soul?

  Of course at some point, we all pondered whether we still had a soul left. Whether we sold it when we bought the promise of eternity. Stripped from us like the mortal lives we thought so important at one time. I was a good parishioner and had gone to church dutifully. In the darkest part of the night all alone in bed, I would wonder, though.

  Have I doomed myself to hell without realizing it? Or was this hell and we just missed the announcement that first night?

  I know what you’re thinking, why worry about my soul or an afterlife when I had immortality and eternity on my side. A somewhat recent development, this obsession of mine.

  Generally speaking, we didn’t interact with the older ones, they did whatever it is that they did, and we do as we do. But the potential for sponsorship existed. If you got the attention of an older one, your tenure would be shortened, and, of course, you would owe the older one.

  And they set the terms of sponsorship, potentially you could be at the end of your tenure or even worse off. Back to square one, indentured to your sponsor for a time specified by their whims. A risk that was worthwhile, since you could get lucky after all.

  A setup that sounded like you could have your pick of older ones to cozy up to and impress. But the kicker was that you didn’t see many older ones, I've only seen three in the last eighty-three years. Boring Bill, Amanda and Ned, a truly wretched immortal that we all endeavored to avoid.

  A few of the others and I have had secret discussions around this, where had the other older ones gone? Had there ever been more? These, of course, were never more than whispers, none of us wanted to attract the attention of the Man our way.

  The thinking at one time was that Bill would be my sponsor; I had notions to that regard as well. But he quietly disappeared a couple of years after my induction into the community. The little I was able to uncover indicated that his tenure was up, and he had moved on. To greener pastures, it was assumed, finally perhaps a different country. Or just a different part of the country, and what bliss that would be.

  So I did my best not to attract a sponsor, I despised Ned and Amanda was only marginally better. It became easier after my husband married his mistress. I entered a decidedly dark period; he hadn’t even waited a full year before he remarried. He divorced me in absentia and married her almost immediately. And much shorter than nine months later she gave him a son.

  I was beyond surly and pushed everyone away, it sucked, and I was sulking. Now it was easy to admit that I ended up sulking for twenty years over a man that I didn’t even love anymore. Possibly it was because she gave him a child where I never could, or that he settled down and became a loving husband for her
. It made me wonder why I hadn’t been worth the effort.

  So after a few weeks of arguing with the others and eventually picking fights my tasks changed. Now they suited my darker mindset. Initially, it was persuasions with whatever force necessary.

  Eventually, though, I just became the Manufacturers’ assassin. A common killer I am ashamed to say.

  Three

  ACCEPT

  It needed an exclamation. A life-changing event deserved something more than a button on a screen. I pressed it and waited for a breathless moment.

  20 HOURS REMAINING

  It was like an accusation; I lost four hours because of my indecision, and I would pay for it with less time to formulate a plan. My coffee left a bitter taste in my mouth. No amount of sweetness could disguise the bitterness that welled up inside of me.

  I pushed everything aside and lay my head on the table; it was time to gather my thoughts and get my shit together.

  “Hey! You can’t sleep here! If you're done, pay and leave.”

  The waitress was a pain in the ass, and I had to go or I would do something I would regret. I put down the exact amount for my meal. I wouldn’t be back and didn’t fear reprisal.

  The rain had stopped, and it was finally cold; some would have called it fresh. From a very optimistic viewpoint, the world could look that way but I already saw the evidence of crap seeping through the water. Muck drifted away to spread its foul taint to another location.

  I opened the door to my loaner vehicle, aka stolen car. It was a pretty little thing; some broker had it parked nice and cozy in an underground garage. In theory, it was safe but nothing was ever that safe. There was always some idiot around that would fall for some boobs and a confused look.

  “I don’t know how but I lost my ticket, could you help me out, please?”

  A strategic cleavage reveal when my keys mysteriously, accidentally dropped. I’m not saying all men was that easy, but some were and made it easy for the likes of me.