Chapter Ten

He couldn’t sleep. There were still people wandering around the motel, singles looking for a chat, a drinking partner, a bedmate, and a few couples and groups talking in the earnest way that told him they were discussing the show rather than current affairs or last night’s TV.

Jack didn’t particularly want to be alone, but keeping company with a bottle of Jack Daniels was out of the question and any kind of human company would come with questions he wasn’t willing to answer; to distract himself he fetched his keys and let himself into the prop store which was a posh name for a tin shed at the side of the motel. From the looks of it the kitchen staff used it to store jars and bottled goods, which had been shoved into a chaotic, rolling mass at the back of the shed to make way for the Shadow Fighter and some random articles from the set – a rack of costumes, some blaster rifles and a trunk which had the words Marketing Dept stencilled on the side.

He leaned back against the sun-warmed wall of the shed and breathed in the smell of acrylic paint and hot plastic from the props, overlaid with a vinegar smell from a spilled jar of pickles. The smell of Fallen Skies. Artificial substance and sour preservation, in a room that a four-year old could break the lock off. And this is what I’ve done with my life.

His mind drifted, aided by the medicinal tang of so much vinegar in a confined space, until it landed on the thought of Skye and he felt his skin prickle into goosebumps. Cute girl. Weird friendship she seems to have … with a guy that’s way too controlling for it to be good. Two steps into the shed and he could run his hand over the reassuring solidity of the Shadow Fighter, another step and he had his hand on the sleeve of the costume of a refugee from one of the frozen planets. And why am I even thinking about her? I’ve got enough problems, don’t need a girl with self-esteem issues to add to the collection of Great Fuck-Ups of Our Time, and if she needs help … I am so far from the person she should have anywhere near her.

A sudden burst of laughter from somewhere outside. Jack straightened up, took his hand away from the costume, and gritted his teeth. It’s all pretend. This, Fallen Skies, who I am, who I’ve become, it’s all pretend. So, this whole Iceman thing I’ve got going on, the person people believe me to be, the stone-cold writer-man – the thing that stops me from wanting … needing someone … how real is that?