Touch of Evil

By Barry Simiana

Touch of Evil is a look at the ‘other’ options in life, the choices we don’t make when faced with a decision. Let’s face it, what happens when you make a choice? Where do all those other options go? We could wax lyrical for ages on the physical and metaphysical manifestations, but Touch of Evil offers us some possible answers.

For example:

What might happen if you took that shortcut instead of waiting in that line of traffic for the accident to be cleared ( Hair Raiser)

Or:

What might happen if – instead of doing the right thing and getting a good nights rest before exams – you spent the night partying, then fell asleep on the train on your way to school (End of the Line)

Or:

What might happen if you found out that maybe you weren’t who you thought you were all your life (My Evil Twin).

Touch of Evil gives us only one of the millions of possible alternatives to these and other choices made, strangely enough, at times at the toss of a coin. Having first been visited by the enigmatic yet tantalising Imogen Assien, we are shown what might happen should the more ‘difficult’ option be exercised.

Each story is complete and whole on its own, but each is linked by the appearance of a copper coin, old and seriously scarred on the heads side. In each story, the coin comes into the lives of the main character by chance (or design, you decide), and the first choice is made. Do they take it or leave it aside. Of course they take it. This then leads to the next choice and at the toss of the proverbial ‘bad penny’ the lives of our heroes are forever changed. Some are humorous, some less than. But each is a viable though, perhaps not wanted, option.

Hopefully these stories will open the readers mind to thinking about the ordinary, everyday choices everyone makes in their day to day lives, and how one small, insignificant act can change the course of their whole existence, even if only for a few hours.

So sit back, relax, feel that coin in your hand. Is it feeling a little rough on one side? Come on, you know you want to. Throw it up in the air.

And remember, there is a touch, and it's just a touch of evil in everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry Simiana
• Release date: Aug 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9780646562964

Barry Simiana

I live (for the moment) in South Grafton on The North Coast of NSW Australia with my wife, four children and two puppies.. I have had a short story published in an anthology in the US in 2007 called Next Stop Hollywood - 15 Short Stories bound For the Screen, tho it is not in my usual field or genre of work, Gone To Mums has been the most popular. In 2011 I published A Touch of Evil, 9 short stories and novellas based on the premise "What if...". In 2012 came the first in a series, Transported Legends: HALLOWEEN. 2013 saw my Next Stop story "Gone to Mum's" rights return to me so I gave it a make over, fixed some formatting and added an afterword (against the wishes of my editor at the time - and republished as a standalone. After an all too long hiatus, I am back writing, with a reissue of a novella from Touch of Evil called "The Card" being reworked slightly and produced as a stand alone, to be followed by a new piece called After the Flood.It will be big. My main interest is speculative fiction, using a motif of "what if..." where (i hope) the reader comes away wondering exactly that.

Book preview

A TOUCH OF EVIL

Barry Simiana

This is a work of fiction. Characters and events, while based on real people and events from the authors life, are amalgamations that all writers use to create characters and in no way reflect any single person - living, dead or undead.

First published 2011 by Barry Simiana

This edition published 2018 by NITEWRITER MEDIA at SMASHWORDS

Copyright © Nitewriter Media 1999, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

SMASHWORDS Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.kindle.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including Google, Amazon or similar organisations, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

https://www.smashwords.com

Also by Barry Simiana

As a sole contributor:

A Touch of Evil

Transported Legends: HALLOWEEN

Gone to Mums (Standalone Edition – Expanded)

The Card – Eddie’s Story (Standalone Edition – Expanded)

As a co-contributor:

Next Stop Hollywood: Short Stories Bound for the Screen

Published by: St Martins Press 2007

You unlock the door with the key of imagination"

Rod Serling. The Twilight Zone

In the words of a wise, famous and impeccably dressed man, there is a touch of evil in all of us.

Imogen Assien, Presenter

... and boldly go where few dare to tread, and from where fewer ever return the same way they left.

Ray vanCrough

Cover photo - Imogen Assien, portrayed by Lorelea Abele

Cover photo painted by - Anton Veugen

CONTENTS

END OF THE LINE

Be careful. Take care. Don’t let the pulse of the train - that clickety clack - lull you to sleep. You might end up where terminating trains go. Or worse.

MY EVIL TWIN

How can you know what to do when you find out you may not be who you think you are?

DAVY’S RIVERS OF LIGHT

The proverb warns that there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip. There’s a fine line between need and desire. Mix the two and find out what’s at the end of the long, dark highway.

HAIR RAISER

Somewhere over the rainbow and over mountains, dreams come true. But maybe so do nightmares.

THE CARD

Comes by chance, goes by chance. Too much luck can be bad for you.

FAMILY BUSINESS

He saves the souls of those cast aside. But who eats the sins of the Sin Eater?

MY FUNNY VALENTINE

Young love, first love. Sometimes the worst love. How much do you give the one you love, when maybe they don’t love you at all?

HOW HIGH THE MOON

We have transported few histories and traditions from the Olde Country to here in Australia. Here is one that seems to have been forgotten.

PROLOGUE

Meet Meakin, a man who is a little different. He will return.

STATION CLOSE

Goodnight, from Imogen.

BIOGRAPHY

END OF THE LINE

Late.

Sooo late.

What the ...

Matt leaned out from the queue to see what the holdup was. Eighth back in the line, he was itching to get his ticket, get on a train and get going. At the ticket window, some dreggy drongo was counting out small change to pay for a ticket. He was dressed like a tunnel dweller, ragged clothes held together with string and tape, a moth-eaten beanie on top of untamed hair. There was a long gap between the derro and the next potential passenger. Matt guessed he kept his personal space at a maximum with some invisible but other-sensed force-field. Or maybe he just stunk.

From the slow passing over of the money, it looked like real small change.

Damn, he muttered softly.

Yer not wrong, the man in front said.

Matt hadn’t realised he’d spoken that loudly.

Matt leaned back again. The day was hot, and he was standing in the sun, three patrons short of the shade. He checked his phone for the time.

9:45.

He was late.

The derro found enough small change and stumbled off with his ticket. The line shuffled forward slowly, perhaps waiting for remnants of the man’s personal space to dissipate, or follow him, or whatever it had been trained to do. Matt leaned out again to see a tall man dressed in clothes cut in an old-fashioned style step up to the window and speak with the ticket seller. Odd clothes. Maybe he was an actor or something, really getting into the character. Two people closer down the line, the rear end of a nurse shuffling back and forth caught Matt’s eye.

Nice form from the back, he thought to himself, making sure he didn’t say anything aloud this time.

Distracted now, Matt shuffled forward a couple of steps, bumping into the man in front.

In a ‘urry are ya, mate? the man grumbled as Matt quick-stepped back.

Sorry. Wasn’t watching.

Fur dinkum.

Matt checked his space, making sure he wasn’t stepping on someone else’s toes, and checked his phone again.

9:55.

Unreal. He had twenty minutes to get a ticket, score a train, and get across the city at the absolute worst time of day.

The phone rang in his hand. Matt flipped the cover up and raised it to his ear.

" Go ... Butchie! Nah. At the station. Running bloody late. Lawson’ll kill me if I don’t make this one. He’s already threatened me with non-completion. If I get kicked out, I’m stuffed. Yeah. A job, or worse."

He listened for a moment and shuffled forward as the oddly-dressed man moved away. A rumble sounded, distant and distorted, but recognisable as the sound of an approaching train.

I should make it. Just. If this bloody line would just ..., what’s wrong with the bloody machine?

The man in front turned around and regarded Matt with a look like a punch drunk Popeye, one eye closed tight, the other bulging open, his jaw hanging like a hooked gurnards. He pointed at the sign on the automatic ticket machine.

What are yer bloody eyes made of? Bootons? It’s fooked.

Matt pulled a face and turned away as Popeye muttered and grumbled to himself. The line moved forward again, this time it was the nurses turn. Across the line, an outbound train pulled up to a screeching stop at the opposite platform. A disembodied voice explained the stops in some non-English garble and announced that the train was leaving, stand clear, doors closing. The train left as quickly as it had come.

I had to do it, Matt said to his caller. Well what would you do? No. Both of them. Hospitality students. Two girls, a case of Corona, a pizza and me.

The line moved again. Matt turned around to see the nurse walk past toward the platform.

Look. I’ve got to go. I’ll catch you after the exam. Cool.

The line continued to move forward. Matt flipped the phone shut and slipped it into his jacket pocket, pressing the pockets button down. The line moved smoothly now, and Matt was standing at the ticket window. He leaned over slightly to speak to the ticket seller and was glad he did. She smiled at him as his eyes widened in appreciation.

Hi, Matt said as he scanned for a name badge, Imogen?

Hi. What can I get for you?

Matt gave his best lady-killer smile.

I need a return to Redfern. Student, thanks.

Imogen punched the ticket and ripped it from the machine.

Three forty.

Matt slipped a ten from his wallet and slipped it under the window. Imogen slid the change back with the ticket.

Train’s running about five minutes late. Should be here any second.

Matt winked and smiled.

Thanks. You here often?

Once in a while.

Maybe I’ll see you?

Imogen smiled again. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but her eyes flashed with a faint golden glow.

You never know.

She leaned across to look at the person behind Matt.

Next, please.

Matt moved away from the ticket window and pushed through the crowd toward the platform edge. With the train being late, the platform was filled with students, workers, mothers with prams on a day out in the city. The platform vibrated under his feet, dust was blown up from the tracks. The train screeched to a stop with a carriage door only a few feet to his left. Three irregular tones out of tune sounded, and the doors pushed outward before opening.

Passengers got off, pushing through the waiting crowd while those on the platform tried to push through to get on. Matt waited until most of the crush had passed before stepping on. He fought his way up the stairs to the high gallery and searched for a seat, finding one next to a young woman dressed in a severe business suit. She looked up angrily from the book she was reading as Matt stepped past her to sit near the window.

Hope it’s not taken, he said with a grin as he sat down.

The woman glared at him for a moment, then returned to her book. Matt leaned against the window and looked out toward the ticket window. Imogen had been replaced by another ticket seller. Matt twisted a little in his seat and settled down for the ride. The train jerked as it pulled away from the station. New posters were being plastered to a billboard: some kind of revolutionary hair treatment.

Big deal, he thought as the train jerked again.

Clickety clack, rattley trap.

A line from his old Aunt Sally. She said it every time she set foot on a train. Matt had no idea what it meant. It was one of those stupid things that just stayed in his mind. The train got up to speed, rocking and swaying on its suspension. Matt’s eyes started to close. He yawned and fought them open as the train turned a corner, bringing the Harbour into view. He blinked once, twice. Third time his eyes fell shut.

Only a couple of minutes.

The words echoed in his mind as the swaying of the train gently rocked him to sleep.

* * *

It was the silence that woke him, the absolute absence of sound other than his own breathing. He opened his eyes.

God, he thought. No.

Matt rubbed his eyes, feeling the grittiness in the corners of his eyes. The voice of weird Aunty Lynda echoed in his mind.

" That’s angel shit in your eyes. The angels do it for fun coz they get sick of being good all the time. It’s not easy being an angel, being good all the time. They get sick of it."

Thanks, Aunty Lynda.

Matt looked around, his eyes still blurry but functioning. Like trying to start an old Holden on a cold morning, Matt tried to get his brain online and rumbling. And just like that old Holden, it wasn’t going to happen easily. It was dark, broken only by the dim safety lights mounted at the foot of each seat. Obviously, the train had stopped, and - from the look of it - emptied. But where? And when?

Strange that there was no sound.

Matt pushed himself up into a seated position. He winced. How long had he been that cramped and curled up? Every muscle protested as he moved. Last time he’d felt like this was when he’d passed out drunk in some guy's dog kennel, barely managing to squeeze his six-foot self into the box, but doing it on a bet, and then falling asleep. But why hadn’t someone tried to wake him up this time? Where were the security guards that the fares had been raised to pay for? And where - exactly - the hell was he, anyway?

He yawned, long and loud, the noise strange in the silence.

Christ, he thought. What’s going on? Where the hell am I?

He remembered the cute ticket seller, the broken machine and mad ol’ Popeye. He remembered getting on the train, sitting down and then ...

Another yawn. Matt’s jaw cracked, his tongue felt puffy, and his mouth tasted like what he was sure pelican shit must taste like. His eyes hurt, his head ached, and his body just did not want to come on line. Talk about after-effects from the night before. Not for the first time, he promised himself never again; and straight away he knew the promise was as hollow as a soap bubble. Of course he’d do it again, given half the chance. What sane twenty-six-year-old undergrad with a reputation as a swordsman wouldn’t?

Matt fumbled in his jacket pocket for the mobile phone. The most contactable person in the world he was. Any-time, any-where.

And there was a clock on it!

He tapped the 'go' button. Nothing. Not even a hint of a spark. The bloody thing was flat as a tack. Damn.

Lawson is going to crucify me.

Matt slipped the phone into his pants pocket, grabbed the seat in front and hauled himself to his feet.

No sense sitting around. Time to get up and get the hell out of here (wherever here was), try to get either to school and beg forgiveness or get home and grab some real sleep and pray he wasn’t kicked out onto the job market.

Matt’s legs felt a little wobbly, both from lack of circulation due to his former sleeping position and to the couple of litres of alcohol still filtering through his system. Pins and needles burned in his calves. He shuffled sideways a few feet and let go of the seat in front...

... and fell to the floor, his shoulders bouncing off the seat across the aisle. More pain to add to his discomfort. The pins and needles were worse, tingling from his lower back to the soles of his feet. He’d bitten his tongue.

A curse on drunken debauchery, he thought. Why was everything that was fun so hard on a body.

Perhaps there was a research grant in there somewhere.

Carefully, he pushed himself up, massaging the tingling out of his legs.

Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, as his old man would say. All parts present and accounted for.

Time to try again, with a little more thought in the process. Dangerous business, this getting up without being fully prepared for the consequences.

Matt stood in one spot, carefully bending his legs at the knees to test their integrity. Still wobbly but secure. Keeping hold of the seats along the aisle, he walked to the end of the carriage to the stairs leading down. Knees and ankles protesting, he made it down the stairs into the connecting lobby, holding tightly to the handrail hanging from the ceiling. Matt looked into the next part of the carriage.

Hello? he called, listening for any response.

It, like his carriage, was empty. Very empty. There wasn’t a speck of rubbish anywhere to be seen - something of a minor miracle on an inner city train. People were pigs, and trains were like mobile rubbish tips, with chip packets and hamburger wrappers and newspapers left to their own devices. Obviously, the train had been cleaned recently.

So, again: why hadn’t somebody tried to wake him up?

Matt went to the doors to his left and leaned up against the plexiglass trying to peer out. He brought his hands to his face and hooded his eyes, trying to block out any potential source of glare, no matter how small. He found nothing. Just black. Look up 'darkness' in the dictionary and there would be a picture of the other side of the window.

Matt felt like he’d been swallowed by some monster, and was waiting to be digested. As soon as the thought was born in his brain, the old paranoia nerve kicked into gear. Pictures cut from movies flicked through his mind: the sand worms from Dune; the Saarlac and the asteroid worm from Star Wars; the beach creature from Tremors. He wondered briefly what digestion really felt like.

Matt reached up, yanked on the manual door release and stepped back. There was a pathetic hiss of compressed air, little more than a whisper. He thought the door was going to refuse to open - but no, with a sigh, the double doors pushed out and parted, letting in the outside air. Was it his imagination, or was there really a disembodied voice telling him to keep clear?

He sucked in some of the cold outside air and immediately wished he hadn’t. The air smelt stale, metallic, with a touch of sweetness that reminded him of his first real job as a labourer clearing out an old warehouse. Three hours into his first day, he’d come across a recently deceased rodent - a large one - all maggoty and full of the scent of corruption. Even the smell of vomit hadn’t been enough to cover that one, and not for lack of trying. This was no better.

Those old familiar feelings of stomach churning and muscles tightening began. Something hot and oily boiled up his throat. He hit the 'door close' button and fought to keep the bile down where it belonged. Jaws firmly clenched, choking down the burning juices in his throat, he held his breath and waited for the stench to clear. The rolling in his guts subsided, and he spat out the stale air in his lungs, sucked in some fresh air and realised that with the doors open, he’d polluted his little sealed environment. Running back to his seat wasn’t going to help matters, either. His best bet was to get out and away from the smell.

Matt inhaled again, filling his lungs and still tasting that metallic taste, but the sweet smell was barely noticeable. On unsteady legs, he turned and went to the opposite set of doors, counted to ten and yanked the door release. The pneumatics hissed again, the sound still muted. Stale air wafted in, but not much else.

Must have been some animal that wandered in and died on that side. Nice to see the old luck was still running true to form.

Matt looked out into the darkness, finding it a little less impenetrable. If nothing else, he now looked at the platform side. He wasn’t stranded in the middle of nowhere looking out over some desert nightscape. He looked left and right, then up and down in case a vampire was lurking in the darkness, waiting for him to come out. The coast was clear. Murky, but clear. He couldn’t see much - some dark shapes that might be bench seats. Off away to the left, a hundred feet or a hundred yards away, something that might have been an old fashioned baggage scale. Away to the right, between two of the possible benches, a darkness amid the darkness that might have been a tunnel or a passageway.

He looked down again to make sure the train and the platform were more or less on the same level so he didn’t end up flat on his face. The first step was the worst - that crossing over into the great unknown - but the concrete was firm beneath his feet. Matt jumped up and down a couple of time to make sure, because it still felt like a dream. Everything was good. Reality started to settle in.

The darkness was cold and it clung to him, nipping at him and keeping the situation real in an unreal sort of way. Matt stepped forward, aiming for one of the possible bench seats - small steps in case there was something there on the ground he couldn’t see that would trip him up and spill him face-first to the concrete - and kept going until he touched a wall. He fumbled around until his hand touched one of the benches. He sat down carefully, patting along the seat as he lowered down. The train was barely visible - and only then as a black shape in the blackness.

Matt shivered as the cold penetrated his clothes. He pulled his jacket closer and hunkered down to keep his body heat close. Where the hell was this place, anyway? He’d fallen asleep and ... what? Crossed over into the Twilight Zone? But there was something - a memory at the edge of his mind - teasing him. He fought to drag it out from its hiding place. Something said before he’d drifted off. What was it?

Some thing...

Nah. Not quite.

He concentrated, breathed through it, and it came to him. That metallic recorded voice that was barely English.

" Train terminates. All out. All change."

He slapped his thigh, the sound barely registering. Mystery solved. He was wherever the terminating trains went. Some maintenance shed or something. He couldn’t have been asleep that long; so it should only be a matter of time before the lights came on and somebody started work. He could be out of here in a matter of hours or less. It still didn’t explain why he’d been left asleep on the train, though. Security would have to be tighter than that. Still, maybe some broom jockey wanted to bolt early and hadn’t been all that fastidious about making sure the carriage was empty.

But the carriage was clean. So someone had been through it. Hey, maybe they’d tried to wake him and had failed. He’d been known to sleep like the dead after a night out.

Whatever. It shouldn’t be long now.

* * *

Time passed, but Matt couldn’t say how much. He started to doze off a couple of times, but fingers of cold found their way through his clothes, tickling his skin and waking him. He talked to himself, chided himself for falling asleep, reminisced about his earlier adventure with the girls, eventually reciting what little he could remember about his assignments. His voice sounded flat, dead, almost monotone. And it wasn’t only his voice. When he tapped his foot, there was the tap but no echo. There was still that absence of ambient sound. No dogs barking in the distance, no sirens, no planes passing by overhead. The volume control to the whole world had been turned off.

Matt looked around, casually glancing here and there, seeing nothing but dark. His eyes stared passed the tunnel entrance, down along the platform and back. Imagination? Or desire? He couldn’t be sure, but the faintest of glows shone gold in the darkness, warm and inviting, like a beckoning finger.

Maybe someone had arrived to work.

At last! He was out of here.

Good. It was getting spooky, all alone in the dark.

Getting to his feet was easier this time. Matt walked to the passageway, still taking small steps so he didn’t trip over anything that might be left carelessly across the platform. The warm golden glow grew stronger as he drew nearer, reinforcing his thoughts that someone had finally come. At the corner of the passageway, he looked in - and sure enough, down there in the darkness a light shone out.

From a window in a door?

Maybe.

Thank God! Someone had obviously come in from another direction - the opposite end of the tunnel perhaps - and was getting ready to start work.

Keeping one hand dragging against the wall - more as a reassurance he wasn’t walking into a rabbit hole like some Alice in Wonderland - Matt walked carefully toward the light. He felt tiles slip by under his knuckles - the ceramic cold and clammy to his skin. He counted them as he went, again to keep his imagination in check.

Funny though. The more steps he took, the further away the light seemed to be. Panic slipped into bed inside his mind. Matt quickened his step. His heart beat faster. The light seemed anchored the same distance from him. Matt ran, but it felt like he was running under water.

Then he was there.

Damn!

Matt stopped, almost tumbling over his own feet. Breathless, he steadied himself on the doorframe until he calmed down, forcing his heart to slow down and stop trying to beat itself out of his chest. As he’d suspected - (hoped) - the light shone through a window panel in the door. It was soft, golden, warm and inviting. Black lettering on the glass read

STATIONMASTER

The lord of the manor. The man in charge.

Matt grinned and allowed himself an arm pump of victory.

Yes!

He knocked on the wood, the sound swallowed by the atmosphere, making it barely audible. He tried again - harder this time