The Reflectors

By W. P. Ferguson

As Pete came around on the floor, he wondered how did a glass of water appear next to him, and who gave him his tablets? How did they know what tablets to give him? Was he being watched as he’d believed for a long time, and if so, where did they come and go from? Were they good or bad? He needed to find out the answers to these and many more questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398443877

W. P. Ferguson

It’s an amazing feat that this is Pete’s third book… It’s not been an easy journey as he’s dyslexic, and has only ever read one book himself. After having a serious accident during the first covid lockdown, he has amazed himself and everyone around him with his writing skills. He always had the imagination but could never put it into words – they say miracles do happen, so maybe this is his miracle.

Book preview

About the Author

Pete lives in Lichfield with his wife, Angie. Pete is actually William Peter, but is known as Pete. This is his second book, his first one is called Little Daisy, which is aimed at a much younger audience. Pete has a great imagination that allows him to take readers on amazing adventures in this book. Over the years, he has told his grandchildren many stories, and he is currently in the process of turning some of them into books.

Dedication

For Angie

Without her help, this book wouldn’t have been possible.

For my mother-in-law, Irene Parkes

She was a kid at heart, you will always be part of us.

07 June 1935–02 August 2021

For my brother-in-law, Rob

He pre-reviewed this book for me and thought it was amazing, keep on reading mate.

03 September 1962–29 July 2022

For my daughter, Lisa

I hope you can still read this book as you sit with the angels, miss you every day.

12 December 1982–14 October 2022

Copyright Information ©

W. P. Ferguson 2023

The right of W. P. Ferguson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398424173 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398443860 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398443877 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgment

To my wife, Angie, for her help and dedication, without whom this book wouldn’t have gotten past the first page.

Prologue

The Accident

Hi, my name’s Pete. Before I start my story I need to tell you a little bit about myself, so you will understand how I got to this point.

I was born in the late 1950s in a town called West Bromwich which is in the West Midlands, and at the age of nine, I had already had a bad experience in hospital.

It started one night while I was at boys’ brigade practice. I’d had quite bad stomach pains while I was at practice, but by the time I got home later in the evening, I was doubled over and in agony. My mum asked if I’d been play-fighting, or doing any challenges that may have caused the pain, I said no and told her it had all started while I was learning to play the bugle. I really wanted to learn this instrument as I had only played the drums until then and this seemed like good fun, but I hadn’t realised how hard it would be. As soon as I started blowing into the bugle, my stomach started to hurt.

I think mum thought I was over-acting. She made me a hot water bottle and told me to go up to bed and try to get some sleep, and see how I felt the next morning. So off I went to bed, clutching my water bottle to my stomach.

Later that night mum came into my room, as she had heard me crying.

You don’t look well, our Pete, you’re very pale, she said. I think I need to ring the doctor and ask him to make a home visit.

Mum rang the doctor, and when he finally came, he looked quite worried and took my mum into the hallway to speak privately with her.

The next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance being rushed to hospital. Once I arrived I was immediately prepped for surgery, and underwent an emergency operation to have a burst appendix removed. This alone was scary enough, but after the operation my wound became infected, which made everything worse, and this gave me a fear of hospitals for life.

The thing that helped me through at the time, was meeting a lad called Mick. He was in the hospital having had an operation on his eyes, and he had to wear patches and bandages, which meant he couldn’t see at all at this time.

You can imagine the fun we had when he asked me to push him around the ward in a go-kart. In those days, children didn’t have their own special wards, they were put in the women’s wards. We got told off a lot by the nurses as we must have crashed into every bed. It was great fun and took my mind off things for a while, although I still never got rid of my fear of hospitals. So now you will understand why, when just over two years ago, after being a hit and run victim, my fear of hospitals took over, and I had to get myself out of there as quickly as I possibly could. The doctors told me I had been left with some brain damage which could cause me to have dizzy spells and blackouts. It would also affect my memory, which it does quite often, and this causes me to doubt myself at times. So maybe you will understand as I tell you my story, why I keep questioning myself, and why I’m also a bit of a loner and like to keep myself to myself. Since my accident, I’ve not really felt like going out shopping or even cooking much, so I’ve been ordering pizzas and Chinese takeaways etc, and I’ve ordered my shopping online for home delivery. The only other contact I’ve had is with my next-door neighbour, as she very kindly looked after my house while I was in hospital. On the afternoon of my accident, she had been returning from work, and happened to see a crowd of people standing over someone in the road. She stopped to see if she could help as it was so close to home, and when she saw it was me she told the other people that she knew me, and she then rang for an ambulance. She started popping round with the odd meal, and she also used to collect my medication from the chemist for me, but she travels quite a lot with her job, so she isn’t always around.

I should have had an operation to drain fluid from my brain but as you already know, my fear of hospitals was never going to allow that to happen, so the doctors allowed me home to self-heal as best as I could. I’ll take tablets for the rest of my life and there are risks that I could pass out at any time without notice, and if one of the blackouts turn out to be really bad then I may not recover from it. In my opinion, we take risks in everyday life anyway, so one more wouldn’t make a difference, would it? The doctors said I’d have some really bad headaches, and they may get worse as time goes by…boy oh boy they got that part right. They started out bad, and they’ve gotten much worse over the last two years.

I’m still taking my tablets though…or am I? As I said earlier, sometimes I forget things, I doubt myself and I’m convinced I’m going crazy.

Am I going mad?

Am I forgetting things all of the time?

Chapter 1

Keeping an Open Mind

Have you ever put something down, and when you go back for it, poof…it’s gone?

Sometimes it re-appears later, and you just think to yourself, Oh, maybe I didn’t leave it where I thought I had.

Have you ever had a feeling that there’s someone behind you, and you’ve turned around only to find no one’s there?

Ever heard things go bump in the night when you were a child and never found out what it was?

I think we’ve all had the heebie-jeebies when we were kids at one time or another…waking up in the night and looking at toys that we left lying around the bedroom. The teddy or the toy clown left on a window-ledge which now looks like something much more sinister in the dark, and before you knew it you were hiding under the bedsheets trying not to move in case it realised you were awake.

I don’t want to keep going back to my childhood, but sometimes it’s easier to explain things when you look at them through a child’s eyes. As we all know, children’s minds are much more open to the unexplainable, and much more accepting of things that an adult mind would need to explain in a rational manner. I’ve always kept an open mind due to an experience I had with some friends when I was ten.

In the sixties, my parents would go to the pub and us kids would sit in the outdoor. As kids we thought this was really fun, as anyone coming in and out of the pub for the toilet would either give us money to buy sweets, or would ask us if we wanted anything. We didn’t always go with our parents to the pub though, sometimes we were left at our cousin’s house, and as soon as the adults left all of us kids were straight outside. We met up on the corner wall, it was as if all the kids in the area knew it was playtime, and what great days and nights they were. It seemed like the days were much longer then and it never really got dark until late, it felt safe to still be out as most of the other kids in the area were playing out as well.

We never went back into the house until one of the older kids would tell us the adults would be coming home soon, and then we all scarpered as quick as a flash. I still smile about it to this day, as I really believe our parents never knew what we got up to when they went out. I was ten now and it had been a few months since I’d had my operation to remove my appendix, but I was still playing on my recovery, and using it to my advantage as and when I could (as kids do). My mum or dad would ask me to run an errand or do a few extra chores, and I’d convince them that my stomach still sometimes hurt. Although I was perfectly fine when it came to playing out with my friends.

I enjoyed the fuss and I was making it last, and why not? Isn’t that what kids do? Sometimes I regret lying to my mum and dad about it, so maybe this would be a good time to say ‘I’m sorry’. Can they hear me? Who knows? I’d like to think they can, in fact after everything I’ve encountered over the past couple of years, I know they can.

Anyway, back to that warm August night. I was round at my cousin’s house while mum and dad were at the local pub and it was much too hot to stay indoors, so as soon as they left we went outside and sat on the garden wall. Some friends came to join us as they always did and we started telling ghost stories. We even took bets on who would be frightened first, it would normally have been me or my younger sister, but not on this night. We didn’t really understand what was going on so perhaps that helped us, but the older kids were looking really scared. As you get older in life, you tend to remember things differently to how they actually happened, and you change a few things here and there to suit yourself (especially when these things are unexplainable, it makes it easier to rationalise them). However for the sake of imagination I’m going to remember that night as my child’s mind saw it.

The ghost stories were really good as I recall, but the look on my friend Jim’s face stopped us all in our tracks, I’d never seen anyone look so scared. Jim didn’t scare easily, so when he pointed up at the night sky and told us all to look, we just started laughing at him, thinking he was pretending to see a ghost. We weren’t going to be frightened that easily, no way! That was, until another of our friends looked up to where Jim was pointing, and he stopped laughing too. At that point we all looked up, and then everyone else stopped laughing as well, as none of us could believe what we were seeing.

Up in the sky was what appeared to be a large spaceship, and there were three smaller ships flying around it. This was my first UFO sighting, and although at the time I had no idea what I was looking at, I thought it was really exciting as there were so many colours and bright lights. It really was a beautiful sight to see, it lit up the sky and we were all mesmerised. I had heard people talk about such things, but I didn’t quite understand what a UFO was.

The older kids all seemed really scared and shouted for everyone to go into the house, RIGHT NOW! They gathered us younger kids together and we all went into my cousin’s house and waited for the adults to come back from the pub.

Growing up, I thought about that night from time to time, although I dismissed it as quickly as I thought about it. I mean who would believe you if you said you’d seen a UFO? None of our parents did.

I like to think I have an open mind, but UFOs and different worlds that we couldn’t understand? Unbelievable!

Well, that’s what I thought anyway, until the day I met the Reflectors and the Snatchers!

Chapter 2

The Knowing

The Reflectors and the Snatchers, who are they? You may well ask!

Well let’s go back to the night it all started just over two years ago, and I’ll tell you who and what they are.

The Reflectors are a people who seem to have taken on the job of looking out for us, the Snatchers are from the same place, but they take whatever they can without a thought for anyone else, although it’s important that you understand that the Snatchers aren’t evil or nasty. I will explain more about these people later on, but for now I need to carry on with my story. One night, just over two years ago, it was getting late and I’d just had a Chinese takeaway delivered. I always had at least one takeaway every week from the local Chow King Chinese Restaurant, I do love my sweet and sour chicken and fried rice. I made a cup of tea (it’s customary to have a cup of tea with my meal) and sat down to eat, and this is when everything started to happen.

The pains in my head started while I was eating, it wasn’t too bad at first but it soon got worse, so I decided to go to bed and see if I could sleep it off. That wasn’t going to happen of course unless I took one of my tablets, which I now really needed, but when I looked for my tablets, they were nowhere to be found. As the pain got worse, I could feel myself slowly drifting in and out of consciousness.

I began to get quite scared as without my tablets my headache could become really serious, and it could result in me passing out completely. My next-door neighbour was away on holiday so I couldn’t knock her door for help, and even if she had been there, I hadn’t seen her for a while so she probably wouldn’t have answered her door this late at night, not that I could have blamed her. She had been working away a lot recently as well, and had asked if I could arrange to have my medication delivered as she wasn’t always around to collect it for me, which was fine. I did miss her stew and dumplings though, it made a nice change from a takeaway.

This was getting really serious now and I was struggling to think, where could my tablets be?

I always put them in the bathroom cabinet, but they weren’t there, so where had they gone? It was too late, I could feel myself passing out…This is it, I said to myself, you should have had the operation when you had the chance, Pete. It’s no good crying about it now.

As I felt myself becoming more helpless, I managed to get myself into the bedroom. I can’t quite remember how the next part happened but somehow, I was taking two of my tablets, and the strangest thing was that I was taking them with water!

How could this be? Where had the tablets come from? Where had the water come from? The biggest question was, how was I managing to take them alone when I couldn’t hold myself up any longer, let alone do anything else?

I just couldn’t understand any of it, but at this point my headache overcame me and I must have passed out completely.

The next morning as I woke, I almost knocked over a glass of water which was on