“That sounds like a great idea” Gina said smiling. They didn't go away as much as they should and a vacation was well overdue.
They finished their breakfasts and turned to go and get dressed, just as the phone rang.
“I'll get that” Gina said as Tom continued on to the bedroom, “Hello?”
There appeared to be no immediate answer, so Gina repeated her greeting. She listened hard as she heard a strange static sound crackling through the receiver.
“Hello?” she said again, the crackling getting louder. This was either a crank call or a call centre that had rung her automatically with no one on the other end she thought, and so put the phone down. It rang again before she had the chance to turn and follow Tom, and she picked it up again.
“Hello?” She said once more, a little frustrated.
The static sound crept back, quicker and louder than before and seemed to snap at her ear drum with a piercing tone.
“Jesus” she said as she slammed it back down. There must have been some fault on the line somewhere she thought, so she dismissed it and walked off to join Tom in the bedroom.
“Who was it?” he called over as she approached him.
“I don't know, I think there's a fault on the line, as all I got was static. If it carries on, I'll contact the company”
She continued on through the bedroom door towards him and then started getting herself dressed. Back in the kitchen the telephone flashed momentarily with an intense web of blue filaments.
BRANDON’S HOUSE
Danny awoke, his head thudding from the wound he had received the day before. He touched the deep cut, winced and pulled his hand away quickly. He had slept on Brandon's couch that night, it wasn't particularly comfortable and his body ached in random places, muscles he didn't know he had were sore and tight. He sat up and looked around. The lounge looked like it had been tidied up, he couldn't remember them cleaning up their empty beer bottles the previous night, so Brandon must have thrown them away after Danny had dozed off. He had only had a couple, but he was that tired that they knocked him practically straight out. He decided to go into the kitchen and help himself to some breakfast. He tried to be as quiet as possible, as Brandon was probably still asleep. The remarkable and tragic events of the previous day were all he could still think of, a deep sorrow and grief about what happened to Monique continued to flow through him. He kept replaying that moment in his head over and over, torturing himself. He couldn't imagine how it felt for Monique, those last devastatingly brutal moments. It brought tears to his eyes again and he wiped them away with the back of his hand.
“Danny” said Brandon, who must have heard him and was stood in the doorway to the kitchen.
It made Danny jump and he spun round towards him.
“Hey, sorry if I woke you, do you want a coffee?” He asked Brandon.
“Erm, yeah sure” He replied looking slightly bemused, “How did you get in here?”
Danny stopped for a second, what did Brandon mean? He'd been here all night.
“I slept on the couch remember?” He replied, thinking that Brandon must have had much more to drink than he thought, and had just woken up bleary-eyed and muddled.
“Err, no I don't remember, and what the hell happened to your head?”
“Are you serious?” Danny asked.
“About what?”
“About not remembering me sleeping on the couch”
“No, you weren't here last night. Why do you think you were? And I'd still like to know how you got in here, I thought I'd locked the doors before I went to bed” Brandon said sounding annoyed.
Danny couldn't quite believe this. Had Brandon really completely forgotten about yesterday? Danny had got used to waking up and his imaginary friends being plucked out of existence, but this was something new. It must be related to everything that had been happening before.
“So, you don't remember me coming around yesterday at all?” Danny asked, Brandon shaking his head, “Do you remember the Shadow people? The monster me and Monique encountered, and the TV report about it all?” Danny asked further, afraid of what Brandon's answer would be.
“No, what the hell are you talking about? Monsters? And you said shadow people, so you've seen them too?”
Danny couldn't believe it, although with all the reality changing events that had happened lately, he should learn to not be surprised by anything anymore.
“Okay, I'll show you” Danny said as he walked back into the lounge and picked up the TV remote,” It'll be all over the news, you'll see what we were talking about”.
He turned the TV on and started switching through local stations and news stations trying to find one that was reporting on the aftermath of the reality creatures' bloodbath. He changed channel after channel unable to find one that was showing it. That didn't make sense to him as it was major news; it should be on one of them. He expected it to be on the national news, it was something so out of the ordinary they would be covering it on one of the 24-hour channels, but there was no mention of it. Even the headlines that flashed across the bottom of the screen didn't mention it. He kept trying more channels, flicking back through the ones he had already tried, sure that it would be featured any moment. But there was nothing, like they had forgotten about it, forgotten about dear Monique.
“What are you trying to find Dan? You're acting weird, and what's that cut on your head?”
Danny threw the remote down angrily and turned to Brandon.
“This is crazy, with everything that happened yesterday you'd think they'd mention it” Danny said confused.
Was this the next level of some kind of psychosis he was fast approaching? He
