Remember when DVDs were released with a glut of added features, sneak peeks, and glimpses ‘behind-the-scenes’? If you were really lucky, you’d get a whole bonus disc with extra stuff to watch. Those were the days, eh?
Consider the following as my book’s equivalent of a bonus disc. You’ll get a sneak peak of New Yesterday. The prologue and first chapter have been storyboarded as if they were a movie. You could even call it a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at what went through my brain while I was writing.
(Side note: don’t you think there’s something magic about the way a storyboard translates words into images? I’ve always felt it’s like watching a scene in a different language. I hoped the process of storyboarding the first chapter might be a cool way of seeing what else could’ve been lurking beneath the words, and I’m really glad that I get to share it with you.)
Fair warning though — I’m not an artist, so expect the sketches to be crude at best. And, hey, if you’ve never enjoyed the bonus disc of a DVD, then: a) I won’t hold it against you, and b) get yourself to a charity shop, pronto.
Now, sit back, relax, and get ready for the feature presentation . . .
If you can’t download the pdf, don’t worry, just keep scrolling…
NEW YESTERDAY — STORYBOARD
by Frasier Armitage
A Sample of New Yesterday
Copyright © 2022 by Frasier Armitage
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations for a book review.
Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Printing, 2022
INTRO
‘There’s no cure for regret. Until now! How would you like to erase those troublesome past mistakes? Have you ever wondered what your life would look like if you’d done things different?
Well, what are you waiting for? Pop on down to your local “Anderson Whitman” and see what’s available in New Yesterday! That’s right! If you’re sick of the same old routine, now’s the time to escape it. Explore limitless possibilities in the world’s only city where time is as flexible as you want.
With a wide range of lifestyle packages to choose from, changing your history has never been easier. So stop living in the past — make the past live for you. Wave goodbye to “if only.” Don’t delay. Start your new life today!
Because, if your future’s what you make it, why shouldn’t your past be too?’
— Anderson Whitman Real Estate, broadcast circa 2029.
ONE
It wasn’t the threat of a bullet through my head that forced my sweat to boil and bones to freeze.
Locked in the elevator, floors ticked by like years.
Cold steel dug into my vertebrae. But none of that caused the chaos hammering my brain, shredding my stomach, pumping ice through my veins.
No, my every nerve hung on one word —
Adam.
How did he know my name?
“Don’t worry.” The gunman tightened his grip on my collar. “This’ll be over soon.” I could only guess how.
Gears whirred, the soundtrack of my pounding head. From my pocket, the phone buzzed, blasting at my heart, jerking me into the wall.
“Don’t answer it,” he said.
His pistol jutted deeper into my back — a marionette’s string tugging me any way he wanted.
He slammed me against the mirror and emptied my pockets.
The phone clattered to the floor, reverberating around the boxed walls of my descending coffin.
Celia’s name lit up the screen.
Two seconds was all I’d need. Two seconds to answer and tell her where I was. She’d sort this out, retrograde the morning so I’d been nowhere near the 27th floor when this lunatic showed up. One phone call and none of this would’ve ever happened.
“Look,” I said, my mouth dry as ash, “I don’t know who you think I am, but you’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I know exactly who you are.” His eyes flashed, face twisted in the warp of the mirrored panel.
How many times had I glossed over that same face in warning bulletins and news reports? On pop-up alerts telling me to ‘tap here if you’ve seen this man?’ In black and white grains beneath the headlines. ‘Linear Offender Still At Large,’ ‘Manhunt Continues,’ ‘Police Say No New Leads.’ The most famous face in the city, and now it was preying on me, scolding me with its silent threat.
The lift steadied.
“Don’t get any ideas.”
Doors churned open to the underground parking lot.
He dragged me to a battered minivan abandoned in the visitor’s bay.
“Get in.” As if I had a choice.
Empty packets of Doritos littered the passenger seat, a no-man’s-land of leftovers reeking of booze and BO.
My abductor slid behind the wheel and dropped the gun in his lap.
The engine wheezed as we pulled from the curb and filtered into traffic, melding with a parade of brake lights. The seat thrummed to the rhythm of the tires bumping over crumbs of tarmac.
“This is all your fault, Adam. You know that?”
“I don’t . . . ,” I started but caught my tongue before it led me straight into a bullet. “Listen, whatever you think I did, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? If you’d never found me, none of this would’ve happened.”
Either he’d got a terrible sense of humor or he was a few records short of a jukebox. Found him? It wasn’t me that had snatched him from his office. Maybe going linear really did make you as crazy as they said?
Outside the window, high-rises crammed us into narrow lanes, silver blurs pressing us in. Steam hissed out of vents to mingle with exhaust fumes. The street was a pressure cooker, boiling us in concrete. My skin prickled. Where was he taking me?
“Are . . . , are you . . . ,” I stuttered.
“Spit it out!”
“Are you going to kill me?”
His hand hovered over the gear stick, reluctant to shift. “Only if I have to.”
I clutched the seat while it jabbed against my shaking legs.
“It’s nothing personal,” he said. “I didn’t plan for this. But it’s the only way. Do you understand?”
What was there to understand about this guy? I sat stiff, the belt drilling into my chest.
“Just forget it,” he huffed as the car sped faster down the boulevard.
Maybe if I closed my eyes, it’d all go away? I’d be back in my office going over the mall plans with Jeff, getting ready to dine clients at the gala ball later tonight, instead of being kidnapped by this madman. ‘It was the only way,’ he’d said. What did a person need a hostage for exactly?
Just breathe. Don’t think about it. But the stench of stale sweat and the tap, tap, tap of his gun on the seat choked the air like two hands around my throat. There was no escape, no matter how tight I squeezed my eyes shut.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I want my life back.”
“Your what?”
“Are you deaf? You took it from me, Adam. And I want it back.”
“But I . . . , we’ve never—”
“Not you too?” He shook his head and tensed the wheel. “I was getting on just fine before you showed up, y’know? But then you came with your questions and your papers and your annoying little whine going on and on and on. You changed everything. And now you don’t even remember it. This city’s really done a number on you.”
I could’ve said the same to him. Why was I even trying to talk to this psycho? Everyone knows better than to get involved with a nut job who’s gone linear. I’d never met the guy until he’d strolled into my office and jammed a gun in my face. But then how did he know my name?
“Where are we going?”
“To make things right.”
We turned a corner and the car skirted the curb, screeching to a halt. Over the road, the Anderson Whitman logo decorated a steamed glass front. Screens filtered through properties on a slideshow, advertising apartments and houses across the city.
“Now when we go inside, you’ll tell them this is your fault,” he said. “You’ll say you came to see me, and everything that followed has all been just a huge mistake. And then they’re going to fix it so none of this ever happened. Okay?”
Okay? What was okay about any of this? “Do I have a choice?”
“There’s always a choice, Adam. A right one,” he grabbed the gun, “and a wrong one.”
Its harsh metal split the space between us like lightning. “You’ve got your gun. Why do you need me?” The circle of its barrel was a vortex, a black hole that swallowed my vision.
“Just do your part and nobody gets hurt,” he said.
Gets hurt? I shook my head. “This is crazy. I can’t . . . , this isn’t going to work.”
“Of course it is,” he said. “They’ll listen to you.”
“What if they don’t?”
“They will. They have to.”
What was he trying to do? Force Anderson Whitman to retrograde his past by feeding me the history he wanted? Blackmail them into changing his life by taking me hostage?
“Now what are you going to tell them, Adam?”
“That this is my fault.”
“Good. And . . . ?”
“And they need to fix it.”
“Now just calm down. Everything’ll be okay, as long as you stick to the script. You ready?”
Ready for what? Ready to lie for him so he could get a new past, or ready to have my head blown off?
I nodded.
He stuffed the gun inside his belt and tucked it beneath his trousers. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
THANK YOU FOR READING…
I hope you enjoyed this short sample of NEW YESTERDAY. The complete novel will be available to purchase soon.
Find your past.
Save your future.
What if you could change everything in your life you wish you’d done differently? Fix regret? Unlock the potential of your past?
That’s what Adam Swann did in New Yesterday, a city where events in the present can alter history. He’s living the life of his dreams, yet he can’t shake a name from his mind — the memory of a woman from a past he left behind.
Who is she? And despite the dangers that remembering his former life would pose, why can’t he bring himself to forget her?
Adam will unearth long-buried secrets as he searches the city for clues to the woman woven through his memory, haunting every thought. As the truth of his past drags him into a conspiracy that threatens everything he knows, he’ll be forced to choose between the life of his dreams or facing the man he used to be.
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