First Pages: Screams for the Dying by C.M. Simpson

Screams for the Dying is the fifth and final short story to be found in An Anthology of Worlds. It is also available as a stand-alone short story.

Screams for the Dying is a short science fiction story that blends myth, fantasy and science fiction. In the time in which this short story is set, banshees and star ships are real, and so are a lot of other things.

Screams for the Dying is available as part of An Anthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.

First Page: Screams for the Dying

 I had lived here from childhood to my thirtieth year but, in spite of the wattle dancing on the breeze and the eucalyptus-scented air that brushed across my skin, I knew I no longer belonged. My nostrils remembered the faint fizz of Kelfa blossoms from the sun-drenched planet of Bolan, and my eyes recalled the darkness of subterranean living on the asteroid of Quorbet.

Now, as I stood, again, beneath the gold-flecked grey of the acacia and stared at the red earth of my home, I felt my homecoming a farce and found myself cursing the accurate wisdom of another older than myself.

I had doubted her when she said that few who had wandered as long as I had, could retain the links to the lands of our birth. It had been the truth.

I was different now. I had learnt so much. I had discovered the truth of legends and the reality behind fairy tales.

I knew there were creatures for whom death was but a step in the cycle of life, another stage in their own strange metamorphosis. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, the fey; all were real. I no longer doubted the existence of banshees.

I had disbelieved that the banshee’s wail meant death, only to discover it true, and I had also found that not all impending death compels the creatures to scream.

Take the man now walking towards me, his dark face a picture of anxiety as he searches for his daughter. She has been missing for just over an hour. I know where she is hidden, but I will not tell him. He is about to die and, if he finds her now, she will die with him. I have discovered that banshees suffer prescience to a merciless degree, but never when they need it. 

The explosion comes. I hear it as a dull ‘crump’ above us. Red rock hurtles through the air. It swarms as helplessly as ameleorites in a solar wind. I will be showered by pebbles and sharp shards. He is buried beneath a boulder. Someone comes.

END EXTRACT

If you'd like to read more, Screams for the Dying is available as part of An Anthology of Worlds, and also as a stand-alone title at Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, iTunes, and Nook.