Departure Read online

  I already feel like I’m about to go insane from watching the man run out of time. Like everything in this drab world we call life, the archive images simply don’t do the real thing justice. No static picture can convey the kind of personal horror that a living, breathing person has to contend with. I wonder briefly, once again, if this is the Jurda’s plan, to remind us of the pain we’ve caused other sentient beings, including other humans. I kneel down so I can talk to both of my children on their level.

  “Kelle, remember that I’ve always loved you, and I will always continue to love you, forever and for eternity, no matter what happens when I walk through that portal. I know you’ve hatched some crazy plan to try and follow me, but you can’t. You have to stay. If you went with me, that would be selfish. Don’t leave Jason and your mother with that as their last memory of you. Grow up and be someone important, be something different. Stand out and stand above if you can, but more than that, be happy and enjoy your life.”

  “I love you so much, Daddy!” she wails and buries her face into my neck. I hold her while I give my son my last words.

  “Jason, I don’t know what you will be when you grow up, but whatever you choose, I know you’ll be the best at it. Take care of your sister and your mother. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I don’t want you holding on to this your whole life. Be brave and let me go. I love you, so very, very much. Never forget the dolphins.”

  Jason doesn’t say anything, he’s crying too violently. He crushes his face into the other side of my neck and I hold both of them as tight as I can, wishing I never had to let go. We stay this way for almost five minutes before I gently push them both away.

  “You two are brave, and I know you will be strong for your mother and for each other. Let me say goodbye to her, and then I want you all to go home and keep each other company until you fall asleep. Can you do that for me?” I can feel tears streaking down my own cheeks now.

  Both of them nod, and when I stand up, I smile when they hold hands. I turn to Cara, and am afraid for just a moment that she’ll bolt, running away so she won’t have to hurt any more, so she won’t have to watch me walk through the portal.

  “No matter what happens,” I say into her ear as I pull her to me, “no matter where you or I end up, I want you to know that the last ten years have been the happiest of my life, and my only regret is that we couldn’t meet before that.” She’s overcome by wracking sobs, but I hold her tight, and I force her to hear my words. “I’ll always be waiting for you, whether in death or in a distant galaxy. No matter where this doorway leads, I’ll always be waiting on the other side for you. All you have to do is walk through it when it’s your time.”

  “I love you so much,” she says between sobs, her fingers tracing one last line down my cheek, feeling my hot tears spill around and over them as they linger at the sharp edge of my jaw. She pulls her hand away, and with one final motion before I turn to walk to my destiny, she kisses the tips of her fingers, the taste of my tears her last memory of me.

  I stop just before taking the final steps that will lead me beyond this world, this life. I try to stop myself from looking back, but I can’t. I have to look back. Kelle and Jason are holding their mother. Cara’s eyes are averted, but my son and my daughter both watch me take my final steps.

  Epilogue

  There wasn’t a flash of light. There wasn’t a feeling of changing pressures or temperatures. One moment I was in the Departure Center, the next, under a clear green sky, a reddish sun nearing the horizon. A horizon free of any obstructions, other than what looked like a forest that stretched on until it melded with the low mountains in the distance.

  “Terrance,” a familiar voice calls to me from my left. “I knew you’d make it.”

  I turn to see my mother standing near me, my father next to her, their fingers linked together. I wonder if my brain is dying from being transported into the middle of a black hole, or maybe from falling into the core of a gas giant, the gravity crushing me before the poisonous atmosphere and radiation can kill me. Both of them look exactly the same as the day they each took their walk through the portal.

  “We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” my father says.

  “I have too,” I say, falling to my knees, fresh tears welcoming my parents as they kneel down and envelop me in their arms.

  Arrival - coming Q1-2014

  Author’s Notes

  A super-ultra-mega thanks to Kendall Nellis, my first-line editor/proofreader/head-smacker. Without her, Cherise would get a giant pile of garbage and charge me six figures to edit a short story.

  Many, many, many thanks to Cherise Kelley. She’s my first professional editor, and is a pleasure to work with. If you are an aspiring author, or just an author in need of a proper editor, seek her out:

  http://size12bystpatricksday.blogspot.com/p/cherise-kelley-book-editor.html

  Hello, once again, friendly readers. As usual, I would like to say THANK YOU for taking the time to read this. And, as usual, this is where I ask that you leave me a review at Amazon or wherever you snagged this story from. Even if you hated it. Every author wants 10,000 5-star reviews, but I’m a bit more realistic (as in…I will get a total of five stars around the 10,000 review mark heh).

  I hit the big 40th birthday at the end of August. I was feeling a bit blue that day, and so for a birthday present to myself, I sat down and cranked out this story for Carly, my wife. She loves to read the nonsense I write, but I write a lot of science fiction. She’s a nerd/gamer (she loves to annihilate opponents in Team Fortress 2, and it kind of freaks out her high school students that she is intimate with all of the nerd culture/memes), but science fiction isn’t her thing like it is mine.

  I’ve forced her to watch a LOT of bad sci-fi movies and television. Okay, that’s probably an exaggerated lie, but some of the things she’s been ‘forced’ to sit down and watch with me...Carly is a good sport, but she has her limits.

  This story is really meant for her, as it is a bit…romantic? I guess, I don’t know. My author page clearly states I do not write romance or erotica. So…I had to throw some aliens and such into the story, because that’s how I roll (and I try to not be a liar).

  But it is a kind of love letter to my wife, and the turmoil I feel inside whenever I have one of those terrible, fleeting moments where I imagine what life without her would be like. We’ve been solid for eleven years now, and I hope we get the rest of eternity together.

  Instead of being gushy and writing love letters like some 17th Century romantic, I wrote…this…to her and disguised it as some kind of alien-portal-dystopia thing.

  I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go a little further with this story. I could easily write about the Aran-Human-Jurda conflict, a whole book or even a series of books maybe. Then there’s the ‘portal’ thing. Where does the ‘criminal’ portal go? Why is everyone on the other side of the portal still only forty years old?

  Right. I’ll shut up and publish this. The next page(s) are all shameless (self) promotion, so I advise you to skip that part.

  Travis Hill

  November 12, 2013

  Boise, ID

  Extra Nonsense (otherwise known as “Shameless (Self) Promotion”)

  Hey! I wrote some other stories too. They are just as awful as this one. I highly recommend you avoid them at all costs:

  “It’s Better This Way” - http://amzn.to/1bfRdQo (Perma-free)

  Twenty-three years ago, the 'bulls' appeared in orbit and destroyed Earth's infrastructure in less than ten seconds. These days, the alien invaders aren't as much of a problem as the surviving humans are.

  Evan Greggs learns that things aren't always as bad as they seem, but sometimes the choices to be made are as murky as they are difficult when it comes to living on The Farm, a community of survivors near the Cascade Mountains in central Oregon.

  When a detachment of the old United States Army arrives with new information about the bulls, the citizens of T
he Farm are tasked with making another hard choice.

  24,000 word novella

  LGBTQ Friendly (it is post-apoc science fiction, not romance / erotica)

  “Ability - Part I” - http://amzn.to/18fnanH (Perma-free)

  “Ability - Part II” - http://amzn.to/HEBDCR ($.99)

  “A Christmas Tale” - http://amzn.to/1d87pTf (Perma-free)

  He knows if you've been bad or good...

  The three Devlin boys are in trouble, and this year they might make it onto Santa's 'naughty' list.

  6,535 word short story (I’m going to warn you that this is not a story you want to read to your children. You can imagine the reason why I am warning you…)

  I’ve probably written some other stuff, but whatever.

  If you wish to complain directly to the author, talk about hockey, heavy metal, or discuss how “Breaking Bad” went from a dark comedy to a serious, gritty, incredibly bleak tale: [email protected]

  Or maybe you are a Twitter type of person: @Angry_Games

  (I do NOT spam ‘buy my book!’ other than one time after I release it. Since you probably follow 2,000+ others, it easily gets lost in the pile, which is a good thing. I hate ‘buy my stuff!’ spam as much as you do.)

  If you wish to get an email every decade or so that says I’m about to release a book, you can do that here:

  http://eepurl.com/D2ktH

  I have a public Facebook page and such, but I’m not a firm believer in social media as a sales or marketing platform. I believe having a good book that readers want to read is the best kind of marketing. Which begs the question: why are you reading this literary travesty?

  http://www.angrygames.com is some place I post stuff once in a while.

  Cover Art by Cheryl @ CCR Predesigned Book Covers:

  http://www.ccrpredesignedbookcovers.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/ccrdesign1

  DEPARTURE

  By Travis Hill

  Copyright 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events 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.

  Cover Art by Cheryl @ CCR Predesigned Book Covers:

  http://www.ccrpredesignedbookcovers.com/