Golden Horizons

  The new setting burst into Kate’s vision. It appeared then blurred. 

  She swayed on the spot, forced to lurch forwards and kneel to cope with the nausea. 

  “How often do you this? I’ll never get used to it,” she said, voice heaving with sickness. “Well, help me then!”

  She took a few deep breaths, then looked up. 

  Varjak wasn’t there. 

  She stood upright, panting. 

  “Varjak?” she called. “Varjak! We’re safe now, get your a*s out of invisibility!”

  There was no response. 

  Kate was beginning to shake. 

  She had arrived in some sort of corn field. 

  No one else was there - the field stretched in all directions, touching each horizon with no appearance of a soul. 

  “Don’t tell me he’s gone to Italy,” she whispered. “Of course, Verona in Italy is more obvious than this one. I used to come here every year with my grandparents because Aunty Jilly lived here.”

  She took a long sigh, then found a space to sit in between several stalks of corn. She sat down with a thud, noticing her hands. 

  They were splattered with the blood of the two undead she had killed. 

  Without looking, she reached out and grabbed a few stalks, using the frayed ends to siphon off as much blood as she could. 

  “Why didn’t we discuss which f*****g Verona we meant? Even if I appear there, there’s no guarantee I’ll end up in the same place as Varjak. If that stupid undead hadn’t attacked him, we would have left together!”

  She glanced at her hands. 

  They were a rust colour, stained by the congealed blood.  

  She sank further into the ground, her shoulders dropping. 

  “Even if I brought one back to life, I still killed the other one,” she whispered to the wind. “Didn’t have time to revive the other one.”

  The sky was a hazed blur of amaranth and persimmon, wisped with the watercolour of amethyst kissed clouds. 

  It made the gold of the corn glow against the myriad of deep colour in the distance. 

  “Well, I can’t sit here all day. But then again I could. Don’t need to sleep or eat. Don’t have anywhere to go, anything to do. I could sit here for the rest of my life if I liked.”

  “You’ll be lucky.”

  She was up on her feet with the last syllable. 

  She had turned to the intruder, russet palms raised in defence. 

  “Who are you?” she hissed. 

  The man blinked. At least she thought he was a man. 

  It was difficult to tell, given his very young appearance. 

  He was a doctor of some variation. He wore an off-white coat with several pens stuffed into the breast pocket. 

  His hair was dramatically stuck up and leaning to the right, and a coppery shade of brown. 

  “I should be asking you that question, surely?” he said.

  Kate stared. 

  “Where am I?”

  “In my research field. I saw a life form appear on my graph, and came out to investigate.”

  “Research for what?”

  “No, hang on, firstly why and how are you here? The whole place is sealed off with electric wire,” said the young doctor. He appeared primarily bemused by her, rather than annoyed.

  She shook her head. “It was an accident, I’ll go if you need me to.”

  The young doctor smiled a little. “Nah, it’s okay. Not doing anything top secret after all, I just wanted to know how you got past the wires. My name’s Scott. What’s your’s?”

  “Uh, Cheryl,” Kate said. 

  Back in the facility, they each had created aliases to use whenever they were in a situation of giving identity. 

  This was rare, of course - if they needed anything that required getting past security, they exploited the advantages of being undead. 

  However, they had agreed on using such aliases to wipe themselves off the map as much as possible.

  “You look like a Cheryl,” said Scott. “And, oh yes, this field is researching the growth of crop fields situated on ley lines versus those that aren’t.”

  Kate stared. 

  “Ley lines?”

  “Don’t know what they are either, huh?” Scott laughed. “Yeah, myths about them have always fascinated me. In the past ten years, the growth of crops on top of or near ley routes has increased by each passing year. 

  When I noticed the pattern, I bought out an old farmhouse in this field and turned it into my research centre. Of course, it’s just me running around in it, I don’t think others are too concerned about crops growing faster.”

  Kate’s fists went down. 

  “So why are you?”

  “Why am I interested? Because it goes beyond the fact that crops are growing faster. Something is happening deep within the sheets of the earth, like a power building. 

  The fact the crops are growing faster and faster is just proving my theory that whatever power is in those ley lines, it’s building up and up.”

  Kate was quiet for a moment. 

  If this guy knew loads about ley lines, he could inadvertently help her in her quest to find the stone. 

  She had nothing useful to do while she was here in Verona. 

  She may as well try to get as much information as possible, even if it was fruitless in the end.

  She gave a little laugh. 

  “That’s quite ironic, actually. Here I am, hunting down ley lines and studying them, and I bang into you.”

  Scott’s eyebrows shot up. 

  “Are you one of those ley-hunters? People say those folks are insane.”

  “Well, I’m not insane. I just want to clear up the different stories about the ley lines, you know, find out if any are true.” 

  She was a good liar. Varjak would have been impressed. 

  Stupid Varjak, she thought. Not making clear which Verona it was. Although, it was her fault too. She could have also made it clear.

  Kate sighed internally. 

  No use blaming anyone, it’s happened. 

  “Well that’s…fantastic!” said Scott. “Come on, let’s go back to my research centre and I’ll give you a bunch of information I’ve found out about them.”

  “Can’t wait!” she exclaimed, through gritted teeth. 

  Kate moved towards Scott, following him through the rows of corn to the research centre. 

Reviews

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Verona, L.A.? Didn't know there was one. Quite the odd circumstance to be thrown into-- helpful, of course. Poor Varjak, I must say. It's always distressing when I don't have the ol' fella around.
I'm still entirely ignorant to the physicality of these 'ley lines'. They don't make a whole lot of sense. My general idea would be a pattern of undead energy that pulses out of the stone, and therefore renders that chemical property (in that pattern) across the face of the Earth.
Scott's character is surprisingly flat for your taste. He seems to be a one-purpose kind of guy, or perhaps a fake. Well, as of now you make a good case for him being a boring mortal. Suits the situation, I suppose.
I just hope Kate doesn't get raped by him.