David Langford - Different Kinds of Darkness

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Different Kinds of Darkness

by David Langford

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First published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 2000

Fictionwise

www.fictionwise.com

Science Fiction

Hugo Award Nominee

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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original

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It was always dark outside the windows. Parents and teachers sometimes

said vaguely that this was all because of Deep Green terrorists, but Jonathan

thought there was more to the story. The other members of the Shudder Club

agreed.

The dark beyond the window-glass at home, at school and on the school

bus was the second kind of darkness. You could often see a little bit in the

first kind, the ordinary kind, and of course you could slice through it with a

torch. The second sort of darkness was utter black, and not even the brightest

electric torch showed a visible beam or lit anything up. Whenever Jonathan

watched his friends walk out through the school door ahead of him, it was as

though they stepped into a solid black wall. But when he followed them and

felt blindly along the handrail to where the homeward bus would be waiting,

there was nothing around him but empty air. Black air.

Sometimes you found these super-dark places indoors. Right now Jonathan

was edging his way down a black corridor, one of the school's no-go areas.

Officially he was supposed to be outside, mucking around for a break period in

the high-walled playground where (oddly enough) it wasn't dark at all and you

could see the sky overhead. Of course, outdoors was no place for the dread

secret initiations of the Shudder Club.

Jonathan stepped out on the far side of the corridor's inky-dark

section, and quietly opened the door of the little storeroom they'd found two

terms ago. Inside, the air was warm, dusty and stale. A bare light-bulb hung

from the ceiling. The others were already there, sitting on boxes of paper and

stacks of battered textbooks.

'You're late,' chorused Gary, Julie and Khalid. The new candidate

Heather just pushed back long blonde hair and smiled, a slightly strained

smile.

'Someone has to be last,' said Jonathan. The words had become part of

the ritual, like a secret password that proved that the last one to arrive

wasn't an outsider or a spy. Of course they all knew each other, but imagine a

spy who was a master of disguise....

Khalid solemnly held up an innocent-looking ring-binder. That was his

privilege. The Club had been his idea, after he'd found the bogey picture that

someone had left behind in the school photocopier. Maybe he'd read too many

stories about ordeals and secret initiations. When you'd stumbled on such a

splendid ordeal, you simply had to invent a secret society to use it.

'We are the Shudder Club,' Khalid intoned. 'We are the ones who can

take it. Twenty seconds.'

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David Langford - Different Kinds of Darkness

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