Sleeping Sickness

By Peter Sargent

Ever since we locked the Shudders up, we’ve never let them out. But there are a few who can dupe the psych test and go free. Most think they’d know a Shudder if they saw one. They think he’d sway like an old time snake wrestling Pentecostal, but that’s not how it goes. When the ivory tower first diagnosed the syndrome, it noticed that only the eyeballs vibrated. The second misconception is this: all Shudders are killers, or would be if we didn’t lock them up. But this is also false; only a few have ever progressed far enough into their mania that they emerge with a corpse in their hands. And the ironic thing is, these few who are truly bonkers are also the most likely to score a false negative on the tests and walk free. And they often harbor a homicidal rage about those of their kind who remain imprisoned. You see, it only makes matters worse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Sargent
• Release date: Jul 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310863677

Peter Sargent

Peter Sargent's ancestors were lamplighters, steam train engineers, architects, firemen and preachers. He has a sense for the timbre and color of urban life and industry, coupled with a taste for philosophy and its questions of human destiny. With a classical training in mathematics, Peter spends most his career writing radar processing software. His fiction, mostly of the speculative variety, is the passion of his nights and weekends. A native of Greater Boston, Peter still resides in Massachusetts with his family. If you like his work, then you might consider liking him personally. Visit Peter Sargent's author page on Facebook and get notifications of upcoming work! https://www.facebook.com/petersargentscifi http://petergsargent.blogspot.com/

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Peter Sargent

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Sleeping Sickness

Ever since we locked the Shudders up, we’ve never let them out. But there are a few who can dupe the psych test and go free. Most think they’d know a Shudder if they saw one. They think he’d sway like an old time snake wrestling Pentecostal, but that’s not how it goes. When the ivory tower first diagnosed the syndrome, it noticed that only the eyeballs vibrated. The second misconception is this: all Shudders are killers, or would be if we didn’t lock them up. But this is also false; only a few have ever progressed far enough into their mania that they emerge with a corpse in their hands. And the ironic thing is, these few who are truly bonkers are also the most likely to score a false negative on the tests and walk free. And they often harbor a homicidal rage about those of their kind who remain imprisoned. You see, it only makes matters worse.

* * * *

The crew cleared a space in the Dominick’s cargo hold and Freddy danced in it. The captain, Mark Trumbul, sat on a crate and glanced at Celia. She saw him do it, and she knew he was glad to see her smirk. She was warming up to him. They weren’t into each other or anything like that; she was a med student and Trumbul’s hair was too salty to let him get away with any sailor nonsense.

He leaned over and spoke to her.

I’ve met a lot of folks trying to get the hell away from something, but not too many hard cases. First strategy is, get Freddy pissed. Even if it don’t work on you, everyone else gets a kick out of it. He’s kind of like a dancing turkey; do you see?

A drunken Freddy was agile, but when sober he was clumsy as hell. He being