First Chapter of "Dead Day 2190", a Work In Progress

Genre: Science Fiction, Psychological, Romance

Release date: Unknown

Main Character: Nicholas (Nick) Danelle Austin

I have been working on and off on this story since 2022, but I think it is finally its time to be written with my full focus on it. I'm unsure when it will come out, it may take me a year, but it could just so happen to take less time than expected too, so it may be somewhere between the end of this year and the first half of next year.

This story is one that delves deeply into the psychological aspect in the first half, and features a romance in the second half. In this story, a mortician by the name of Nick Austin is suddenly the only living person among a world of death. Every six out of the seven days, nobody except for him is alive, and so the first half of the book is spent teetering between madness and solitude, while trying to keep up with life on the "living days".

As I described the plot when I started writing it in 2022: "Everyone except one guy dies for six days and come back alive the seventh, for them nothing changes and they don’t notice a thing but the guy lives most of his time with corpses and death."

It's a very, very fun story to write, but I published two other books while writing it because it does get a bit dark at times, and since I'm a writer who gets into the mind of the character, taking a break by writing queer romance or a queer coming of age was a much needed respite.

Anyway, here is the very first chapter.

1 - Hot Black Coffee

“Name?”

   “Austin. Nick Austin,” he replied.

   “First name suffices, mister Austin.”

   “Nick, sorry. It’s Nick.”

   “Alright, Nick,” she said. “We’ll have your coffee ready in a minute.”

   “Yes, thank you,” he replied and shuffled over to a chair a little farther away.

   He set his bag next to his chair and carefully sat down in it. The people around him all looked terribly bored and tired. Not one single person looked like they wanted to be there. Not Nick, he loved it. Well, coffee places in general. He never visited this specific one before. It had opened just two weeks ago.

   He sighed and looked out of the window of the door with a content smile on his face. The rain was trickling down the sunscreen that clearly wasn’t meant for weather like this. It was cozy. The street lanterns gave off a nice glow in the darkness of the evening. He checked his watch. Eleven past five. Perfect. He would be back to close up right on time.

   The lady on his right wore a pretty purple shawl. It didn’t suit her, but he admired her confidence of wearing purple. The fellow next to her was balding. It was obvious he had no intention of talking to anyone, a sour grimace rested on his face.

   “Mister Nick Austin,” he heard.

   He looked back in the direction of the counter. The barista held out his cup. Impatiently. He realized he missed her first time saying his name. He got on his feet, grabbed his bag and walked back to her.

   “Have a good evening,” she said, still with a wink even though he’d made her wait. He nodded gratefully.

   “And you.”

   She smiled a polite smile and turned to the next person in line. “What can I get you?” She asked.

   Nick moved out of the way, and after one last look at the shop, he walked out of the door. Before returning to the shop, he stood still underneath the weathered down sunscreen and took a sip. He closed his eyes. Incredible. This place just got itself a new regular customer. A happy sigh escaped him, and he put his bag above his head. Without another moment of hesitation he stepped into the rain and onto the street.

   Cars flashed by, giving that nice, familiar roar. He zig zagged through the passing cars and onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Just a couple more minutes and the day would be done. Another day of hard work. Hard but fulfilling. He gave himself an imaginary pat on the back, by lack of hands.

   The old lady in the window of the house with the red door smiled and waved at him. Dolores. He nodded back and waved with his coffee cup.

∆

   “Hey man, how was your walk?” Julian asked and spun around in his desk chair to face him.

   Nick closed the door and put his bag on the small table in the waiting area. “Good, good. Has anything happened while I was away?”

   “Nah boss, nothing new. The dead are still dead. Ready when you are.”

   “Ah, great, very good. Have you closed the observation area and the coolers yet?”

   “Yessir, all finished. I even cleaned the floor up.”

   Nick stopped and placed his coat on a chair. “You did?” He asked. Julian nodded. “We have Tasha tonight, don’t we?”

   “Yeah sure, but I thought I’d help her out. Lady deserved it. Anyway—,” Julian stood up and turned off his computer. “You doing anything fun tomorrow?”

   Nick sighed. He wasn’t a bad kid. He wasn’t. He was just very, by lack of better words, chatty. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I’m going to visit my mother.”

   “Ah, good old mom. Tell her I said hello,” Julian replied as he grabbed his coat.

   “She does not know you.”

   “Yeah but I know you.”

   “Right,” Nick said. That kind of logic was hard to beat. He took a look around the room. “That’s it for today then, I suppose. Have you finished your schoolwork, too?”

   “All done.”

   “Good. Well, see you in two days, Julian.”

   “Later. Have fun tomorrow,” Julian said as he walked out the door.

   “Thank you. Take care now.”

   With a sigh Nick closed the door behind Julian and locked it with one of the keys on his keyring. He grabbed his bag, walked through the two big doors leading to the hallway and then exited the building altogether through the black door that was on the right side of him, on the end of the hallway.

   Nick lived in the apartment that laid on the second floor on the building. It wasn’t an apartment when he bought the building. In fact, it used to be part of the workplace. An office, if he remembered correctly. Something to do with pineapples. But since he did not need a second floor with the work he was doing, he turned it into an apartment.

   A white door, very different from the black door to the workplace, led to the stairs to his apartment. He closed the white door behind him. He took off his shoes and went up the carpeted stairs. No better feeling than soft carpet underneath your feet after a day of standing around in tight shoes.

   He opened the door at the top, put his coat on the coat hanger on the wall of his living room and put his bag underneath his coffee table. He sighed and felt his muscles relax as he sat down in his big, brown, leather chair. It was a fantastic chair, he felt like his father when he sat in it. A little less bald, and a lot less dead, but just as cozy. He took the book from the coffee table and opened it up where the bookmark divided the pages between what has been read and what hasn’t.

   ‘Put from you the belief that ‘I have been wronged,’ and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears,’ the page read.

   He smiled happily. This was going to be a good evening.

∆

   A ray of sunlight shone on his eyes. He opened them, only to regret it a moment later. He put his hands in front of his eyes against the bright stream and shuffled out of his chair to close the curtain. He must have fallen asleep while reading. It was not unlike him: it happened more often than he cared to admit.

   He walked back to the chair and closed the book. He caressed the cover of it for a moment, still perfectly fold-less. Then put it on the side table.

   A smile crept on his face. He was going to see his mother today. It wasn’t often that he had two free days in a row. One morning to get there, one to come back. About a full day to spend with his mother, all added up. Sleeping in his old room again. It would be different without his father, he thought. His passing was difficult for both him and his mother, but especially his mother since she had to live in the space where his father no longer was. He had put off actually visiting the house for that reason.

   Coffee droplets splashed down in his cup, filling it up to become darker and darker as the drops fell. His coffee machine was acting up a bit, its ‘on’ button’s light flickered as if the plug wasn’t entirely in the socket. But it was, he’d checked.

   His hand reached for the cream and the other opened the carton. The white mixed with the ever growing darkness and lightened it up immediately. At least, almost immediately. It sank to the bottom first. A weird noise from his coffee machine, and the two streams connected, sending a splash of coffee onto his hand. It was burning hot, which was how he usually liked it, but not on his hand.

   “Ah!” he let out, putting the creamer down to dry his hand of the hot black coffee.

   The coffee machine signaled it was done, but because he wasn’t there to fill it up with all of the cream he wanted to put in, the coffee was darker than usual. He looked at it, defeatedly, but picked it up regardless. He was not someone who enjoyed wasting perfectly good coffee, regardless of the taste. He blew the steam away and took a bite of the toast that he had made before putting the coffee machine on. Perfectly crunchy, just how he liked it. At least one thing that he did correctly this morning. He sighed happily and took a sip of his coffee. Very hot, it was just right.

   A bird flew against the window, startling him so much he accidentally let go of his toast which fell to the ground immediately. He looked at it for a moment, debating if it was worth it. It was.

He picked it up after putting the coffee down and tried dusting most of the dust off of it. One unfortunate wipe sent his coffee flying down the counter to land right next to where his toast had fallen. The darkness washed over the left-over crumbs that he had not yet picked up. It washed over his socks, too. The socks that were still on his feet. Boiling hot coffee soaked them to the point they stuck to his skin when he tried to take them off as quickly as he could. He yelled out in pain as he burned his hands and feet while trying to take the socks off. Finally they gave way. He threw the socks on the floor, very glad to be rid of them, and rubbed his feet. They hurt, he could tell he would have blisters.

   Cold water from the tap helped a little to soothe the pain he felt on his hands. His feet were not so lucky. After running the water on his hands, he took a bottle of aloe salve out of a drawer and applied it generously onto his feet. Then he squish-squashed his way over to his bedroom, leaving footprints of aloe all over the floor. He cringed at the feeling of dry socks against his greasy feet, but he put them on regardless. Then his leisure pants, his day-off shirt and his sneakers. He counted himself lucky that he burned his feet on a free day, his work shoes were not quite as forgiving as his sneakers were in terms of comfortability.

   He quickly ate the rest of his toast, mopped up the coffee and took the pre-packed bag off of a chair. Ever since he talked to his mother about visiting her, it had been ready. Granted, that was only a week ago, but still. He was excited to see her again. He put on his coat and exited his house.

   He peered through the shop’s front window to see if Julian was there yet. He wasn’t. It didn’t come as much of a surprise, in all fairness. Julian was a college kid. A good kid, to be sure, but a college kid regardless. It wasn’t the first time he was late to work.

   Without giving it any further thought, Nick got in his car. It was a small, yellow car. It was quite old, but it had it’s charm. He adjusted the rear-view mirror and stuck the key into the key-hole. The comforting rattle of the engine sounded through the small vehicle. He looked backwards, to the side of him and then got out of the parking spot.

   It was a quiet day in the town. There weren’t any people out yet. Granted, it was only seven in the morning, so there wasn’t much reason for the streets to be bustling with life just yet. Nick liked the town in this way, it was more peaceful. Less hurried, more so… at ease.

   If only it could be like this all hours of the day. It was, at his workplace. The people there were never busy. Each and every one of them was peaceful, at ease. No matter which way they exited this life. All of them had the same expression on their faces. No matter if they’d been rich, poor, ugly, beautiful. That was the thing about death: it did not discriminate.

   He drove past the coffee shop where he bought coffee the day before. It was still closed. The weather was quite different too. It was a good change, the pouring rain from yesterday made the town look cold. No, today the sun was out. It warmed his hands on the steering wheel.

   Carefully, he turned a corner. He hit the brakes as he saw a police car. It was just… out there. In the middle of the road. It didn’t seem to be in use. It was, however, parked quite badly—if at all. It took up a rather large portion of the road. Nick looked behind him to see if there were cars waiting behind him, but luckily for him there weren’t. He debated for a moment on whether or not to just pass the police car. He most likely was allowed to, the car was off and there was no sign of life inside. He could not see much through the blacked out windows, but it was clear it wasn’t in use.

   He slowly drove up to it, then tried to get past it. It worked, but only because his car wasn’t big. Regular cars would not stand a chance. Odd, for a police car to stand in the middle of the road. Especially in a town like this. He looked back at it as it became smaller and smaller in his rear view mirror. It wasn’t his concern today. He had a day off.

∆

   As the sun rose higher up in the sky, Nick’s body started relaxing. There wasn’t any traffic. He got by just fine. It was a rather long road, with not many towns or even gas stations along it. Not many people used it, he imagined. His mother lived in a quaint little village that was more farmland than anything else. She lived on a farm, too, though she had no cattle on it. Instead, she grew flowers. She and his father started it all by themselves. In most ways, at least.

   He could already see the white picket fence. The red bricks of the house were slightly weathered, but still in good shape. The windows had white shutters in front of them. Below the windows, there were flowers. How good growing up there had been.

   He parked his car on the driveway, behind his mother’s old car. The blue and white paint on it started letting go of the car in some places but it was still a very pretty car. Yes, all was good.

He got out of the car, grabbed his suitcase from the back and locked it. Then, he started walking the path that led to the front door. It was a delicate stone path, made up of circular stones. He remembered his father and uncle laying them when he was still a child. He swallowed. It would be quite strange to be in the house without his father. He had always been there. As was his mother, of course, but even her he could hardly picture without his father by her side.

   “Here we go,” he mumbled to himself, trying to cheer himself up.

   His hand hovered over the doorknob, as if afraid to turn it. He shook his head slightly.

   “Nonsense,” he said, and turned it.

   Behind it lay the hallway. Weary planks sat in its floor, waiting for him to walk on them. Some pictures of sentimental value lined the wall on the left. A staircase on the right. It led upstairs, to his mother and his’ rooms. He closed the door behind him, leaving the midday’s sun outside. Only a portion of it came with him, through the window in the door that was slightly dusty. He hesitated no longer and walked right past the pictures, through the door to the living room.

   “Hello, mother?” He asked the room.

   She was not there. Perhaps she was out in the garden, sitting patiently in the sun, he thought. So, he went into the garden. His mother was not there.

   “Mother?” He asked the obviously empty garden.

   There was no answer, other than the buzzing of bees. They hopped from flower to flower.

   “Where are you?” He mumbled.

   She couldn’t still be asleep, could she? At this hour of the day? He almost discarded the thought, but decided to check anyway. She could be, maybe she’d had a difficult night of sleep.

   He carefully walked up the steep stairs. He fell down them once when he was younger. He hurt his arm very badly. He didn’t break it, luckily, but it was painful to touch for weeks. He rubbed his arm without thinking about it, almost as if it was back. The pain. It wasn’t. His feet still hurt a bit, though. There were blisters all over them, he felt them. His hands were better, he barely felt any pain there.

   He knocked on his mother’s door.

   “Mother?” He asked quietly, then louder. “Mother, are you there?”

   There was no answer. She could still be asleep. Or she could be out, getting groceries. He pushed the door open carefully, almost afraid to look in. He wasn’t often allowed in as a child.

   “Mother?” He asked, then looked in.

   There she was. Still sleeping, it appeared. He smiled to himself. She looked peaceful. Not so much when she was awake, she was always busy. He walked over to her. She looked a little pale, he noticed.

   “Mother?” He tried.

   She didn’t wake up. He frowned. She couldn’t be… could she? He felt her forehead. Cold to the touch. The floor started crumbling underneath his feet.

   “No, mom, please, wake up,” he tried.

   He felt her neck for any sign of a pulse. It wasn’t there.

   “Mom!” he said with a cry in his voice.

   He hugged her, trying to get her warm. He knew he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that, but all logic disappeared from his mind. More cries slipped out of his mouth. They weren’t heard by anyone but the walls of the room. He crawled onto the bed, next to his mother, and cried in her arms. Even though she could not hold him, even though she never would again. And even though he knew that, he held on for dear life, as if nothing had ever happened and he was but a boy, scared of a nightmare he’d awoken from in the middle of the night.

   That was the thing about death: it did not discriminate.