Bohemia Village Voice

Bad Feelings

She had a bad feeling about this, and her bad feelings always turned into bad things in reality.
A word about people with second sight: they don’t think about it. It doesn’t take over their lives. For example, Ruby wasn’t cursing Aunt Ginny for causing her to inherit it; instead, she was just trying hard to convince her only friend Shelly that this wasn’t a good idea. Ru was almost wishing she had some secret weapons, but, unfortunately, she was just a 15 year-old social outcast who was not a member of MI6.
While Ru hung on to her harness as if her life depended on it, her friend wasn’t at all concerned.
“It’s obviously telling you that we’re about to be abducted by aliens.” Shelly was a very sarcastic person.
“Come on! When was the last time anything serious happened to you after a premonition? When your mum left the oven on?” Ruby sighed.
Shelly was the only person outside of her family that knew about her second sight and she hadn’t been there the night her uncle died – the night neither Aunt Ginny nor Ru could sleep. Ruby was worried, but being kidnapped by extra-terrestrials wasn’t on her list! It was too late to do anything, though, as the roller-coaster car had begun chugging up the first assent.
The car slowed as it approached the end of the ride. They’d survived with no broken limbs, but Ru still had butterflies – maybe wasps are a better description! They drew into the queuing area and waited for their harnesses to be released.
“Where is everyone? I thought this was the exit . . .” Shelly glanced around, slightly nervously.
“How do you feel about leaving the oven on now?” Ruby whispered back. Other people on the ride were making futile efforts to free themselves from the uncomfortable harnesses. The woman in the seat in front began to cry on her neighbour’s shoulder.
The door suddenly opened to reveal an incredibly calm-looking ride attendant. She wore a balaclava underneath the colourful theme park cap, so her face looked as if it was made of shadows.
The attendant came and released the harnesses and ushered everyone through the door in the side of the room. Shelly slipped her hand into Ruby’s; it was shaking badly.
The exit was nowhere to be seen. The attendant told us to stay, in a static voice, as though through a speaker.
“Why? Aren’t we allowed to leave?!”
The attendant rounded on the speaker and silenced him with a glare. She lifted her arms to her head and took off the balaclava. Shelly gave a tiny screech. The purple lizard-looking thing discarded its theme park cap, left the room and locked the door behind it. Okay . . . maybe being kidnapped by extra-terrestrial beings was on Ru’s agenda . . .
For a few seconds no-one breathed. Then hysteria kicked in. Shelly just stared at Ru.
“Okay . . . I think I trust the third eye a lot more now!” Her eyes were frantic as they held Ruby’s. Yes, her bad feelings turned into bad things in reality, but never this bad.
The cloning process, started on the coaster, was complete and the human subjects wouldn’t be around much longer. The roller-coaster cars came to the end of the ride, where the queues of people hadn’t decreased. Ruby’s clone pushed off her harness and collected Ruby’s bag. It walked into the rain of a typical English day. The clock was ticking, for these clones hadn’t been created for nothing.
The countdown had begun. War was coming to the human world.