Shock

What if, in a flash of light, your world was no longer yours?

 

     It had been a long night for Jacob Taylor. First off, he was just fired from his long time job as a consultant for a local television station. An error in reporting a severe storm front the night before actually resulted in a lot of damage around town, and following a public outcry he was released. It felt like the heavy black clouds all around him were taunting him, the storm flashing at the same pace as a crazed man's laughter. It all made him feel sick to his stomach.

     He just married and was starting a new life though. How she would take all of this, he had no idea, but she always said she loved him and would go with him where ever things lead. He laughed to himself a little bit though, thinking about how he just payed his car off. Maybe things wouldn't go too horribly wrong after all.

     His world turned bright red as the lightning bolt tore through his car, blinding him and sending his car out of control. A few moments later all was still, but upside down.

      "Hey, mister! We're getting help alright?" How long was he out he wondered as he tried to answer the man. A light trickle of blood flowed down his cheek, but he could still wiggle his toes, and he hurt all over. That meant that nothing was broken hopefully.

      Finally, he felt the car overturning slowly. The movement surprised him though. No one tried to secure his neck, no one tried to get him out first, nothing. The jerking motion of the car being flipped back on its side showed something even stranger. A bright, sun filled sky. No storm, no night, just the strong stinging rays of the sun.

     "Are you okay?" A man called from behind the car.

     "Uh, Yeah...I'm fine. Just a little banged up..."

     "Good! Alright, I can give you a ride into town if you like, this car ain't going anyplace." Very carefully, Jacob crawled out of his car, but there was something greatly wrong. It was a different color than before, and it was a truck.

     "Um, excuse me, there's something wrong here...that's not my car."

     "Maybe we better get you to a hospital..." The man asked slowly as he lead Jacob to his tow truck.

     "Yeah, that may be best...hey, can I use your phone?" The driver chuckled and smiled.

     "Mister, my house is like 20 miles from here, it's quicker just to get you to the hospital." Jacob pondered the strange comment for a moment before getting to the man's truck, had the man never heard of cell phones? Again though, another startling thing came to view.

      The steering column was on the wrong side,, like one you'd find in Europe. Maybe the shock had injured his memories or something, he didn't know. He just got into the truck and accepted the ride. Jacob did smile a bit as he saw the proud emblem of a southern cross hanging across the back window.

     "Hey, do you ever get any flack over that?" He asked as he pointed to the flag.

     "From who? I don't cater to no one that would. I'm a patriot through and through." The comment confused Jacob just nodded and turned his eyes back to the road. The sight of it being backwards just gave him a headache though.

     "Um, when you said that you were a patriot and you were talking about the flag...what did you mean?"

     "How hard did you hit your head?" The tow man laughed. "You do know that's the flag right?" Jacob just shook his head. "Wow, um, alright. I guess you have a concussion or something. Anyway, that's the flag, it's been flying since the 1800's when we ran the Brits out of the CSA."

     "CSA? Ugh, I guess I did hurt myself pretty bad." Jacob figured the best way was to play along with the head injury story, trying his best to hide the unease he felt.

     "Yeah, confederate states of America, son!" The man saluted out into nothing, smiling widely.

     "Wow...I really need to call my wife." He said again, reaching into his pockets to find a quarter, but found only his wallet. He began to slowly open it, and found an assortment of strange "CSA" labeled funds with pictures of the varied "presidents" of the CSA, pictures of his wife, now with blond hair instead of the walnut brown it was just hours before, and a newspaper clipping. Cold terror rolled over him as he read the black, heavy headline.

  "Cancer Takes Life of Local Woman"


      "Oh God, no..."


________________________


      The doctors found nothing wrong with him, just a few cuts, but they asked him to stay there until they could get in touch with family, but there wasn't a family here, and he knew it. His wife was dead, the world was backwards, and he had been hit by lightning just hours before.

      For hours he watched TV. The news, history, everything. George Washington? Executed for treason after what was called the “Low man's uprising” now. It wasn't until Robert E. Lee and Ulysses Grant first rallied his ragtag brigades in raids of English strongholds that had grown weak and unstable due to wars with the French over the years. All men were freed. There weren't slaves in a traditional sense in this world. America was populated by a majority of indentured servants and African slaves alike. Finally, the CSA was formed. Canada was eventually taken by the growing CSA in years to come, as was parts of Mexico and some British commonwealths in the Bahamas. Years later though, in a small suburb a beautiful lively woman was cut down in the prime of her life by cancer. No children, survived by her husband. This was not his world. The skies outside were a murky conglomeration of green, blue and brown. A storm was coming. The room was filled with light as a bolt struck the ground in the distance.

     "The Lightning!" he started, springing out of his bed, gazing out the window at a storm in the distance. "It's the lightning! It hit me, it changed it all!" The thought filled his mind as he finally fell to sleep.

______________________________________________

     The next few days wouldn't be any easier. He learned more and more about things. About how World War II wasn't ended until the 1960's since the bomb was never dropped on Japan. Mexico had actually become a strong nation, almost as democratic as the CSA was, even considered an equal in the World Union, which was the united nations here.

      It seemed like it was almost a better place. But without his wife it wouldn't be. At least not to him. The doctors refused to release him though, his condition was "unusual". But there had to be a way to get home, get out of this place and back to her. He began to form a plan. Perhaps if lightning brought him into this strange "mirror reality", it would take him back.

     The time finally came a week later. A nurse had left his room unguarded for just long enough for him to bolt out. He charged out of the room, and down the hallway. Behind him he could hear nurses screaming to him to stop, and the sound of heavy soled shoes following behind as he ran. The signs were all spelled with the typical proper English flair, lots of "u"s used in words like colour, and it disturbed him even more. But he had to find a way to get back to his wife. The grass outside the hospital was wet, the storm was near. He needed a way to make sure he was hit though. He had to think fast though, as there were still people running behind him. Poles, metal, something.

      "That's it!" He reached over and pulled the antennae from a car, it wasn't much but it was something. And with it in hand, he stood on top of the car it was taken from, holding it high into the sky, begging for a strike. The voices grew closer as he screamed to the heavens, wanting his life back, his wife back. Just as he felt the hands of his pursuers against his legs, he again felt the searing heat, and saw the red flash as the heavens reached down in an electric embrace.

___________________

      Breathing was hard for a few moments as he gazed up at the cloudy sky, the rain falling hard and piercing against his face. There were voices around him, people asking if he was okay. Finally Jacob stirred, and saw he was still in a hospital gown, but he felt different.

      "What country is this?" He asked, a taste of blood heavy in his mouth.

      "Um...The United States of America?" A woman asked from beside him.

      "Good..." Shaken, and burning up from the bolt he reached into his pocket, pulling free his steaming wallet. Before things became to shaky he managed to pull a burned photo up out of the wallet's pocket. It was her, with her beautiful brown hair again. And with that his head fell back onto American soil.

Reviews

[Peter Reyes]

Phil, I found out about your story on the sci-fi forum, and decided to give it a read. As to your question if this is sci-fi, my answer is, why not? The trend in sci-fi nowadays is to get away from the aliens and laser guns of yesteryear and to explore themes like alternative history, or to just plain do things differently. And that's what I feel you did here. The argument can probably be made that it can use a more "sci-fi" feel, but once again, if you explored a common sci-fi theme (dimensional/time travel), then who cares that the rest is mundane? That's just my opinion.

Stylistically, while I liked the idea of the story, there are probably a few things you could have carried off differently. I don't have much of a problem with your technical skill (maybe a few missing commas here or there), but the prose is a bit too light for me. I hate telling people "show don't tell," because it tends to get overused, but I think you should add a little more description and flavor to the text. Stretch things out, get the reader emotionally involved. Structure your sentences in ways that invoke feelings and make your readers feel like they are there with the character.

[Autumn Dawn Gorny]

Very outer-limits I like the "fine-line", "That's it!" feel of the piece. Touching yet rebellious at the same time

[Tania Leigh]

Great concept here....the story held my attention all the way through. I agree with Roger and Peter on their points, and I think you should keep going with this...I'd read more :-)

[Nicola]

This is a really cool story and i agree with what Roger said with the few things wrong. Overall, it is a really good story and i really enjoyed it.

[Roger Market]

I think you could make the opening paragraph a little stronger if you didn't say "it felt like." Otherwise, nice opening. :-)

I'd tweak the opening sentence of the second paragraph to say something like the following: He had just married and was starting a new life.

You have a bit of a "hat problem" (do you know the term?) in the third paragraph: We don't KNOW that he's in his car. Perhaps that is something else that's missing from the opening paragraph: a setting. You should make sure that the reader knows where he is and what he's doing; otherwise, it throws the reader for a loop when he/she suddenly has to deal with the fact that our hero is DRIVING his new car instead of, say, walking out of his office with a box of stuff. In other words, a little more description of what's around him and what he's doing (and how he's doing it) would be helpful. Does that make sense? LOL. Sorry.

You've got a few grammar/punctuation errors.

"Hopefully" doesn't mean what you think it does, FYI. It's an adverb, anyway. Just so you know. ;-)

Just a question: why is the man's comment about his house being twenty miles away STRANGE?

Why is the wife's hair a different color? That's interesting.

You use the word "hours" two times in two consecutive sentences (e.g. watching TV for hours). Can you play with that a bit, change it up?

Oh, I like this: "This was not his world. The skies outside were a murky conglomeration of green, blue and brown. A storm was coming. The room was filled with light as a bolt struck the ground in the distance." :-)

You use the word "though" a lot, and I personally don't think you need it in most/any of the places you use it.

Oh, I love the detail of the British spellings. :-)

I think this could stand to be longer. It seems to be resolved a little too quickly. But it's a really cool story. Nice job, despite a few little errors, and some things that I personally would have done differently in the writing (which I have mentioned, or at least a lot of them). :-) The last line is pretty neat, too.

Nice job. :-)

[Rory Cassidy]

This is probably my favorite piece by you, Phil, mainly because it strays from what today's generation generally thinks of as sci-fi. I also really like this one because it is sort of Lovecraftian. The Abyss Looks Back series are good, but this on is hands down your best.

[Melissa M.]

I would have to say this is definitely sci-fi. It's also very intriguing. Even with just this little snippet you told an entire story, and did a great job of it. But it certainly has the potential for much more.

[Kristi Brooks]

I really like this story. And while I think that they way you describe the new country and how it was founded was extremely interesting, it would have been great if you could have delved into it a little more, giving this strange new place some texture. I would love to see this as a much longer piece where it takes Jacob a few days or even weeks to find his way out of this alternate history. Make him live out some awkward experiences and maybe meet some interesting characters or such....
I think that part of the reason I want to see this extended out so badly is that I really like the story, and I want to know more....and that is an excellent sign of a good storyteller...

[Nickolaus A. Pacione]

I had to review this one because I also write Science Fiction. all in all this is a killer write and can definately see where Richard Matheson influenced you. He like you, had influenced me greatly as a dark fiction writer. I've done more literary fiction with the Gothic Horror element because of reading Richard Matheson so I will say this story will call to mind The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. Science Fiction is by far one of the hardest genres to write in, and in the short form no less. I always have an easier time doing this genre when doing longer stories. A lot of my work in the genre is novella length, and showing that you're from Texas it has a lot of influence on the genre.
      If you are looking for a good Texas based horror writer, check out Aaron G. Saunders. I worked with him on the first Tabloid Purposes and he writes a wide array of genres. It is a highly creative work in this genre man -- keep them coming and try to send some of your work to Atomic Jack Magazine.