They never mention that in the comic books.

It hurt like hell!

It must have hurt for them all. At first.

Except for Superman, or Kal-El, or Clark Kent, or whatever… He was born like that. But take Peter Parker. It must have hurt him… Just imagine, you’re bitten by some radio-active spider, and then you start getting urges to climb the walls. Obviously you’re using muscles and tendons and things you’ve never used before. Don’t tell me that didn’t hurt. Don’t tell me that didn’t ache and burn and smart like hell.

It does hurt. Believe me.

Glass is like razorblades, or a really sharp knife. And it feels like it burns, too.

I look down at my arm and I expect to see red, seared flesh. I expect to see weals and swelling, cuts even…

There’s nothing, just ordinary, unmarked skin.

I get black dots floating in front of my eyes from the pain. And my eyes are watering. And I think I’ve bust a tooth from where I clenched them against the sudden white-hot burst of pain.

That’s a lot of hurt.

And that’s not all, there’s another thing they got wrong too.

On the telly, or in films, you see a guy just walk through a wall, or a door. Just like that. No sweat.

But it’s what you don’t see that’s the killer.

For a start, did I mention the pain. OK, for a brick wall it’s less than glass, more like being pummelled all over with a steel bar than walking through flames, but it’s still there.

No, the real problem is your clothes.

No way can you take your clothes with you.

You feel yourself losing it, dissolving and disappearing. You get the distinct feeling that if you don’t watch out, remind yourself of who you are, of the idea of your body shape and size and colour… that you can dissolve and disappear completely. That you’ll flow through the wall, but not reappear on the other side. Lost, melted into the ether.

And, of course, you can see nothing. I mean, how can you see anything when your eyes are melting along with all the rest?

And so your clothes stay behind. Which is logical when you think about it. They’re not part of you, are they?

The first time I walked through a wall though, I lost a filling.

The Dentist had done a good job. Devitalising the tooth, cleaning out the cavity and everything, so I don’t feel anything. But now I’ve got the hole. And how can I explain that? I mean, the tooth’s perfect, not broken or anything. Just no more filling. I could say it fell out. Play dumb. But what’s the point? If I get it replaced, it’ll just fall out again the next time I try it. Good job I don’t have a pacemaker or anything like that. That would really have taken a lot of awkward explaining.

And don’t even think about trying anything after you’ve just eaten. That’s real gross, smearing stuff all across the wall and all dripping down. When I cleaned it up, I really wanted to vomit. But I couldn’t. There was nothing left to puke up.

So you can walk through walls and such, but you come out the other side as naked as the day you were born, with shoes and clothes and keys and your watch and mobile all stuck on the other side.

What sort of Superpower can you call that?

And then there’s beds. You can fall through a bed and wake up on the floor, your nose in dust bunnies and lost socks. How do you think I found this sort of thing out, anyway? You think I walked up to a wall someday and said to myself, ‘Hey, I wonder if I can walk straight through this wall?’ No way. After weeks of weird dreams and falling through my bed, and finally realising that, No, someone wasn’t pulling a fast one on me. The way I see it, I’m lucky I didn’t keep on falling and end up in the basement or worse. Which I don’t think is likely, for two reasons: for a first, there seems to be some sort of reflex, an atavistic pull back to solidity once you get through something. And then there’s the question of, let’s call it, organic matter (and yes, I did use the dictionary for that last sentence). Like I said, glass, metal, stone, brick… all those I can pass through with no problem. Apart from it burning like hell. But I can get stuck with a simple leather belt, or the wrong pair of shoes. Even things like cotton and wool can slow you down, tugging at you, pulling you back. And I don’t even want to think about trying to walk through someone else.

So that’s it then. That’s my superpower, and what I’ve been able to find out about it. Pretty useless, isn’t it? Not really going to save the world with that, am I?

~ ~ ~

The guy was waiting for me on the pavement outside. I brought the moped to a stop, padlocked it to a ‘No Waiting’ sign, and pulled my helmet off.

I’d thought of getting a cape, and a tunic. Or at least a T-shirt, but it was too cold on the bike. And there was always the risk of the cloak getting caught up in the wheels.

And besides, no-one would get the joke.

“Hi,” I said.

“Took your time, didn’t you?” said the other. He was wearing a thick quilted silvery ski jacket, and waving a mobile as he spoke.

“I was over the other side of town, wasn’t I? I told you fifteen minutes, and it can’t be more than twelve so keep your hair on…”

“All right, all right, just saying, that’s all…”

He held the door open, then led the way upstairs.

“You check everything?” I asked.

“It’s all above board, yeah. What’d’you take me for?”

“A professional. I ask everyone the same question, so no need to take it personally,” I replied calmly. “What’ve we got?”

“Steel plate, quarter of an inch thick, and a Pemberton deadlock.”

I sucked in the air sharply.

“Let me guess… he stepped outside and the door slammed shut behind him?”

“Went out for a bottle of vino, and didn’t think to check his pocket until after he’d pulled the door shut. But same difference.”

We climbed the stairs soundlessly. There was a bordeaux stair carpet over polished floorboards and cream walls. In alcoves along the walls, there were what looked like engravings, or perhaps reproductions, with small lights in shiny brass fittings playing down on them. The place smelt like money, so the pictures might be the real thing after all.

We reached the third floor where a red-faced man in a classy long brown overcoat had been sitting on the stairs. He stood up as we rounded the bannisters.

“This your secret weapon then?” he asked, a hint of condescension in his voice. There was also anger and a bit of sarcasm in there.

Mr Brown Coat had a high opinion of himself, seemed used to getting things his way.

“If you don’t want to try, I can go get me toolkit and drill through your door. It’ll be messy and you’ll have to replace the steel plate. Cost you an arm and a leg, ask anyone,” said the locksmith to his customer.

Mr Brown Coat lifted his hands.

“OK, my stupid.” He looked at me.

“Gents,” I said. “Is this the door?”

It looked solid. The matching cream paintwork was impeccable, except for a few scratch marks where metal bars blocked access for the old credit card trick.

“You’ve already tried X-Rays,” I said.

The locksmith in the ski jacket shrugged.

“Nine times out of ten it works,” he said.

This was just a variation on the credit card trick except that the old X-Ray prints were flexible enough to slip under the metal protectors and round the door, yet solid enough to push to tongue back out of the way.

“And are we agreed on a price?” I asked Brown Coat. “I take sixty and he gets his call-out fee.” Brown Coat pulled some bank notes from his wallet.

“I had everything else on me, just not my key—” He slid his hand back into his pocket. “But that sixty is dependent on you getting the job done right…”

“Should be no problem with that,” I said, looking at the closed door. I turned back to the others. “Gentlemen, if you don’t mind waiting for me on the floor below… Tricks of the trade and all…”

“Look, I just want my door opened,” started Brown Coat indignantly.”

“You didn’t tell him?” I said to the other.

“Slipped my mind,” he shrugged. “What’s it to you anyway? Just open the bloody door!”

“You respect my conditions, or I leave now.”

“Oh Lord! Just what I needed, a Diva! Do the job, and shut yourself up, or you’ll never work for me again kiddo.”

“Get this straight, I’m helping you out. I don’t need you. You need me to get that door open. And if you don’t respect my conditions not only will I never work for you again, but I will walk down those stairs, and drive off. And the only thing you can do about that is to do what you agreed, and get your arses downstairs.”

“A prima-donna, God help me,” started the locksmith. He shrugged off the hand when Brown Coat grabbed his arm.

“Stop the pissing contest, right. Let’s go down. I just want to get back in. And tonight if possible. If that’s all he wants…”. He started to walk along the landing to the stairs down.

“If you think I’m…” said the other.

“Put a sock in it, mate,” said Brown Coat. “Let’s go.”

The locksmith glared at me, mouthing something that I didn’t particularly feel like trying to understand, then turned away.

“And make it snappy,” he called out. “Some of us ‘ave got jobs to do!”

“If you think I’m ever coming out for you again,” I murmured as I set my crash helmet down on the stair where brown Coat had been sitting.

I waited until I was sure they were downstairs, and out of sight. I could hear them muttering together.

I slipped off my anorak and rolled up my shirt sleeve. I looked at the door, imagining the configuration of the lock on the other side. Was it a handle or a knob? Was it stiff, or smooth and well-oiled? How far did it poke out of the door?

I braced myself for the sting and the burn, then plunged my hand through, turned the handle and opened the door from the inside.

I blocked the door open with the locksmith’s toolbox and pulled my anorak back on. Then, with a small grin, I felt in my pocket for a small plastic bag, opened it, and sprinkled sawdust on the doormat. Just to keep them guessing.

“It’s open,” I called over the bannister. “You can come back up now.”

THE END

The last story. I had a bit of fun writing this one. Hope you enjoyed reading it.

Stay tuned for the next developments.

I heard myself moan. Tears well up in my eyes. I jerked my head back, hitting the wall, needing to feel something other than this ache, than this emptiness, than this constriction in my chest.

Seeing me move, the doctor quickened his step.

I jumped up, darted through the double doors, and through the reception area, out into the cold night air.

I’d come running in here a little over an hour ago, I figured, my baby boy wrapped in a blanket in my arms. He’d been running a fever, and hadn’t responded to anything I’d tried — damp flannels, baths, analgesics — and was getting more and more unresponsive, broken by bouts of fitful crying. His eyes were red and runny. When I touched that delicate, wonderful head, I felt he was burning up.

I hadn’t been able to find any transport — no neighbours, no minicabs, no buses at this time of night — so I had wrapped him in a thick blanket, and ran for the Hospital. A nurse had taken the small, fragile parcel from my arms while an orderly lead me to a chair, knelt besides me and asked questions, and later brought me tea in a plastic cup.

The doctor had come over and spoken to me. A few words had pierced the fatigue and worry: suspected meningitis… stabilised… waiting for results… At some point a woman with a clipboard had sat next to me and asked questions: name, address, and other details. I had mumbled replies but a alarm had tripped somewhere in the rooms, and the doctor had hurried by, other people had arrived, crowding into the room where they’d put my son.

Then I’d seen the doctor, and known.

There was no need for words.

I stood in the forecourt and breathed, looking up at the few scattered stars in the night sky.

I needed to punch out. I needed to drink myself into blind forgetfulness. I needed something to cover the pain, the lead weight gripping my stomach, my lungs, my heart.

I remembered a grubby face beaming up at me, and my heart melting. I remembered a first tottering step. I remembered a scraped knee, and the cuddle that followed…

“Dad!” I heard someone call.

And then a voice next to me spoke my name.

I turned and looked.

There was a teenage boy in ragged jeans and a hoodie. He pulled it down as he spoke revealing a mess of dark hair, a sallow face, and sunken eyes. He looked like a down and out, or worse. But how did he know my name?

I felt the world spinning, the ground slipping away from under my feet. I reached out an arm to steady myself.

The youth moved closer.

“We haven’t got long,” he said.

“What d’you mean?” I barked back. “Leave me alone.”

His eyes darted right and left, up and down like a torch beam sizing up a darkened room. He moved closer again, reaching for my arm as if to steady me. I pulled back.

“Leave me alone, I…” I started. “I’ve got nothing on me anyway.”

“We’ve got to be quick.” He looked around again. “We haven’t got that long.”

“Get off!”

I pulled my arm back, lifting it, away and ready to hit out.

“I’m your son,” he said softly, looking up at me.

“Don’t you..!” I stormed. I turned to face him. “Do you even real— I just left my son. In there. He’s dead. The only one I’ve got.”

Tears burst through the barriers, flooding down, and burning my face. Everything blurred and faded as I realised what I’d said.

“No,” said a soft voice just nearby. “He’s not… It’s not… It was a changeling. I am… Look, this is hard, and I haven’t got much time. This was the only moment I knew a definite time and place to find you, right?”

“What do you do?” I shouted back. “Hang about here waiting? This how you get your kicks, is it? Messing up poor sods who’ve.. who’ve…”

I felt myself falling apart.

He continued softly: “They steal the kids. Leave something else in the place. It doesn’t live. It’s not meant to. Just cover their tracks like… that’s all…” He broke into a cough. “A decoy, that’s all.”

I looked at him, not wanting to listen. Not wanting to fall for his trick. Not wanting to believe.

“You gotta…” He coughed again. I saw dark bubbles at the corner of his mouth. “No! It’s too soon!” he cried out. I need more time!” And he reeled over in a fit of violent coughing.

I grabbed at his arms. He grabbed for mine. And then we were holding each other on that cold, empty forecourt.

But it felt familiar. It felt right. It felt like I knew him.

“You feel it too,” he whispered. His voice rasped as he spoke, and there was now blood smeared round his mouth.

“Get inside!” I said, and guided him to the doors.

As soon as we passed through, an orderly came over. He took the boy’s shoulders on the other side, leading us forward.

“What happened?” he asked us.

“Dunno,” I said. “Found him like this outside.”

“Sit him down. I’ll get someone to come and look at him.”

He pulled a handful of paper from a roll, and passed it to the boy. Then he hurried off.

“Are you all right, kid?” I asked. He looked white, almost transparent under the harsh fluorescent lighting. The blood around his lips and chin was bright red, too red as he mopped at it, and then held the paper to his mouth.

The orderly came back pushing a clattering wheelchair. A front wheel caught on the lino tiles, stuck and then span free. He jerked at it as he pushed. With him was a young woman in a white blouse, and a stethoscope round her neck.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, catching his eye and holding on to it. She bent down and looked the boy in the face and the eyes.

“Nuffin’,” he muttered. “Caught up with me Dad, and then this started.”

“No I—” I started.

The doctor flicked a gaze over me, the sort of look people give when checking out a family resemblance, gave me a brief encouraging smile, and turned her attention back to the boy.

“Never happened before, I suppose? Nothing in the family?”

This last question was for me. I shrugged.

“And I’m afraid I’ve got to ask,” she said, staring at the boy, on the lookout for his reaction. “No drugs, pills, anything like that?”

He shook his head. Then he bent, coughing again, spitting dark clots of blood onto the crumpled paper towels.

She stood up.

“Let’s get you somewhere comfortable, shall we?” She turned to the orderly standing by with the wheelchair. He was gripping the push handles and then releasing them again. “Where we can get a good look at you.”

The orderly helped him into the chair.

“Can he..?” said the boy, looking at me, and then at the doctor.

“Of course,” she said, touching him softly on the arm. “We’ll need the portable X-ray for his chest. And we’ll send a nurse for some blood samples,” she added, speaking to the orderly. “I’ll be right over.”

He nodded, levered the front of the chair up and round, pressing down again to lift the front wheels over the cracked tiles on the floor.

Another fit of coughing shook the boy as they moved into the room. The orderly handed over another wad of paper, then helped the boy onto an examination table.

“Be right back,” he said. “There’s more if you need it. And just stick the used stuff in the bin there.” He pushed the empty chair with one hand, rotating it, letting the wheels spin. “You’ll be as right as rain in no time.” And he left us alone.

“You all right?” I asked the boy. He was lying back, holding the paper up to his mouth. He nodded.

“So fast…” he said. “Look, I—”

“What’ve you got?” I said. “I mean, it’s not—”

“Contagious? No. I doubt it. A side effect, of getting here. I think—” Then a pause, “Dad?”

I looked at the scruffy, dirty clothes, the pale face, the shock of dark, slightly damp hair. He could be… But he was just any old kid.

“Stop it!” I said. “I don’t know what your game is, but it won’t work. You don’t know who I am, or what I am at all—”

“You’re right…” he cleared his throat, spitting something onto the paper. “I don’t know you.” He paused. “Fourteen months, that’s all I had.” A chill flickered down my spine. “What can I know, remember, from that? Warmth. Impressions. Hugs and feeling the stubble on your cheeks. But even that I’m not too sure. How much I remember, and how much I invented or imagined later. A bed. A warm bed, something blue and soft and cuddly. And something real weird, a lullaby? Your voice, or a man’s voice anyway, singing, We will rock you, rock you little snake…” His eyes looked right into me, and right through. “Does any of that mean anything?”

I shook my head.

How could he know? An old Genesis song, and that mock nursery rhyme I found funny.

“Sometimes I think I made it all up. As a way of comforting myself. Of keeping sane…”

He stopped, his voice trailing off to a moan. His body tensed, and jerked inwards: arms folded over his chest, knees bent, neck taunt.

“I never thought…” he breathed through clenched teeth.

I put out a hand to hold onto his shoulder.

And the orderly backed into the room pulling some sort of machine: boxes and wires and screens set on two spindly legs.

“Doctor’ll be along in a sec’.” He pushed the machine round until it was both under and over the table. “Need you to step outside, Mister. The radiation. Though I’m sure them mobile phones do more damage than this fellow…”

I squeezed the kid’s shoulder, stood up, and walked out through the doors. I looked at the door opposite then rubbed my eyes. I combed my fingers through my hair, rubbed my scalp. Tried to chase this feeling of numbness, of distance.

Another blouse, and then another, pushed through the doors, and into the room with the boy. I heard urgent talk, and the click-clack of machines.

Someone came out.

“You can go back in now…”

I turned. It was the orderly. He pushed the machines against the wall, into a recess between two tables, next to a poster reminding everyone that washing hands reduced nosocomial infections by 60%, whatever that meant.

I looked along the corridor. Just along the way was the room where they’d taken my boy. He’d been hot and feverish. Burning up. But living. And now he was dead. I wanted to go and see, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. The weight of the night bore down on my shoulders, pinning me to the floor.

“They’re waiting on the results,” said the orderly. He looked at me with soft, liquid eyes. “Hey, didn’t I see you earlier?”

I nodded.

He patted my arm just above the elbow.

“He’s stable now,” he said. “Go and wait with him.”

I looked through the doors. The boy was lying on his back, peaceably enough. But now he had tubes and a monitor attached to his arms and chest.

The orderly gave my arm a last squeeze and moved on.

I saw that the kid on the table was looking at me.

I pushed through the doors, scooped up a stool, and sat down near his head.

“How you doing, kiddo?” I found myself saying.

He nodded.

“OK,” he said. “I knew this was the risk, but… I figured it was worth it.”

He looked as if he was going to cough again, and I looked around for the roll of paper, but he calmed down, the sudden rush of colour fading from his cheeks. “Before the end. You should go. Just slip out. They’ll only want to ask you awkward questions.” He paused. “And you won’t be able to answer.”

“Speaking of questions…”

“You can ask, but I probably can’t give you much in the way of answers. Or not much sense, anyway.”

“The baby? My son? Why?”

“That’s easy. I told you. To cover up. Hide the snatch. They like to get them young, and I guess that fewer people notice the change when it’s a littl’un. But you should still mourn it. Mourn me. At least I tried.”

“And why should I believe you?”

“Don’t. There’s nothing I can say to convince you that you don’t know yourself, already. I did it for me, not for you…”

He reached out a hand, trying to find me. I took it.

It was warm, hot even. It felt curiously like holding my own baby son.

“Thanks,” he said in a low, soft voice. I fancied I could hear it fading off to a wheeze at the end. Besides him one of the machines started an urgent beeping.

He looked over through half-closed eye, fresh blood swelling at the corners of his mouth.

“So much light here,” he said. “I never imagined…”

The machine started sounding some sort of alarm.

A nurse pushed through the doors, punched a button on the monitor, and cut the sound. She felt his wrist, his forehead, and then inspected his eyes before hitting a button on the wall. A bell rang out.

She looked at me.

“What happened?”

I shook my head.

“He was just lying there. Seemed peaceful enough.”

The doctor arrived.

“You’d better wait outside,” she said to me, leaning over the boy.

I let go the hand, feeling the contact break, and disappear.

The machine started beeping again

I backed off, and out the door. I felt tears running down my face again. I reached up, and brushed them away.

Down the corridor a couple were arguing at the admissions desk. A man in a grey coat pushed a mop across the floor. An orderly carrying piles of white boxes pushed through some double doors, and disappeared from view.

I walked on, through the double doors.

Outside in the car park I was a little surprised to notice it was still night. I felt so much had been happening.

I breathed deeply, feeling the sharp night air in my throat and lungs.

“Dad?” said a voice from behind me.

I turned to face the voice.

I heard a cry echoing round the forecourt, across the car park, under the streetlights and the empty stars.

And that scream was mine…

THE END

2550

Most of these stories have been fun to write. Not this one. In actual fact it started out as a dream. Or perhaps I should say a nightmare. And it was a most terrifying experience. Sincerely, I don’t think there can be a worse experience for a parent than losing a child, which is why this particular nightmare spooked me, and why I needed to get it out of my system.

This story was originally written in January 2010, and is the second to last of this series. Next week’s is — I hope — a little less intense. See you then.

…

The one they called Joki knocked at the door. He was carrying a breakfast tray that he set down on the table.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, my elbows resting on my knees, my head in my hands and looking at nothing and the grey floor. I suppose I was just waking up but I had the feeling I’d been sitting, doing nothing for quite a while now.

“Today a special day,” said Joki.

“Yeah?” I said. Their constant good humour and eagerness for the most ordinary things just got on my nerves. And you could shout and scream, break things, stay in bed all day, and they’d always be there, smiling, clearing up, encouraging me. I should know, I’d tried all of that and more.

“Today we go to the beach.”

I looked up. I saw what I figured passed for a smile on his face.

“For real? But I thought…”

“It all arranged. You eat breakfast and we go when you want.” He stepped backwards.

The breakfast was the same it ever was: orange juice, a fresh bun with a small pot of butter and another of jam, a bowl of muesli, a jug of milk, and a fruit. Sometimes a knobbly orange, or a twisted banana. Once a mushy kiwi. I even had a sickly tomato once, so I had to explain that it was generally considered a vegetable, not a fruit. They just smiled. The fruit always seem to have been chosen by someone who had only a vague, second-hand or theoretical idea of what fruit should look like.

“Great.” I looked at the tray, trying to muster some enthusiasm for the meal. “Thanks.”

“That alright. You take your time. Enjoy”.

Joki backed out of the room, the door closing after him with a slight hiss.

I wondered whether to switch on the screen, just to pass the time, but I was sure I’d already watching everything that was available. And some, more than once.

I drank the orange juice and sat down at the table.

…

The vehicle came to a stop and the windows depolarised. We were parked by a stony cove, looking down at the beach. Everything looked frightfully normal: the blue-grey sea lapping at the sand and stones and black splashes of seaweed; a few whiffs of white cloud in a blue sky; spiky sea grass and brambles twisted around the concrete blocks edging the car park.

The door opened with a slight pop, and the smell of ozone, of rotting seaweed, and a salty tang that I had always associated with fish, wafted in, gripping me in the memories of hundreds of afternoons at the seaside. Involuntarily tears pooled at the corners of my eyes.

Joki looked at anxiously, his fixed smile slipping at the edges.

“All good?” he asked. “All OK?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.” I rubbed at my eyes. “Probably just an allergic reaction of something.”

“Allergic reaction,” said Joki flatly. “Not good.”

I looked out the open door, down the sloping beach, remembering sand castles and splashing in the water, walking on the stones, and afternoons just laying in the sun. I remembered storms and great breakers tearing at the beach, the howling wind and driving rain. I remembered exploring the rock pools for crabs and sea anemones and tiddlers. I sat and looked and remembered.

Joki stood opposite and watched patiently.

There was no wind to speak of. I realised later that this was probably why this particular day had been chosen.

Eventually I stood up, and stepped down onto the warm tarmac. I felt a bit giddy feeling the ground under my feet. I fancied I could feel each crack and bump, even through my shoes.

I stepped up and over the rough concrete curbing where groundsel and sedges and dandelions grew in clumps along the edges, then onto the shingle. The pebbles crunched and shifted underfoot. I walked straight on, over the low dunes, the tide line where the sea had stripped away the stones exposing the sand underneath. Then across the yellow-grey sand, raked with drain-offs from the shingle, until I stood at the water’s edge.

The waves lapped at my feet, small waves breaking spreading and dying and pulling back over and over and over.

I stood and watched the sea rippling and flowing, lightening and darkening as it folded and creased, reflecting the light from above.

Apart from the gentle lapping, all was silent.

I turned and looked.

Where were the gulls?

There was always seagulls, bobbing on the waves, wading in the shallow, standing on the rocks, squawking and squabbling.

“Where are the gulls?” I shouted.

Joki came running down the beach.

“It OK,” he said, putting a small hand on my arm. “Gulls come back soon. It all right.”

I twisted away and collapsed into the damp sand, crying.

“Where are the bird?” I sobbed. “Where’ve all the birds gone..?”

Joki stood over me as the waves licked at my feet and legs.

“Next time,” he said. “Next time you see birds.”

I cried, tears streaking my face, snot dribbling from my nose. Eventually I felt Joki’s hand on my shoulder. He was waiting for me, as patient as ever.

When I did finally stand up, he lead me back to the car and the compound.

…

They had arrived, from nowhere as far as we were concerned, to find a few survivors scattered and hiding on a ruined planet. They nursed us, cared for us, and set to work cleaning up.

It was only later, a lot later, I realised the time and effort that, selflessly and tirelessly, they poured into healing us all.

And don’t remember saying a work of thanks. Not then.

That trip to the beach was the culmination of months of labour just to clean and restore the isolated cove, and then wait for a day when they could be sure no wind or rain would blow in and compromise the environment.

For me, that was the turning point, the moment I stopped moping and started pulling my weight. Helping them to help us. Sure there were days when I doubted. Days when I wanted to die like the billions of others. Days when I wanted to say curled up on my bed and do nothing, nothing at all. And, of course, there were days when I did just that.

Today, looking back, it’s still not finished. Perhaps it never will be, this looking after a whole planet. And they’re still here, still helping. Not Joki, but his great grandchildren, I think. They don’t live for too long, the little green men. Which makes it even more amazing in my eyes when you see what they accomplish.

THE END

This story fell into place, ready-formed you might say. I miss-read the title of a book in a French book catalogue my part-time daughter had left lying around as ‘A Day at the Beach with the Little Green Men’ once translated into English. And there it was. There’s not much I can say about this except it was written in late December of last year, just after I abandoned another story.

His mother waved her arm, scoping out the packing cases, the packets of food, the water containers and the other junk that cluttered the make-shift veranda in front of the wooden shack. And of course, the rocks and the spindly plants shirking in the cracks as the land tumbled down to the black beach and the sea.

“Yeah, but I never imagined it’d be like this. It’s so bo-o-oring. There’s nothing—”

“Look, I do not want this conversation now,” she said, hitching her bag onto her shoulder where it bounced against her backpack and slipped back off. Again.

She pulled on a lock of her hair, bleached nearly white and frazzled from the salt air and pinned it behind her ear. Again.

“Have you seen my cap? I really do need it out there, even if it is just to keep my hair out of my eyes.”

“Behind you. On the box.”

“Ah!” she said, turning and nearly blinding him with a corner of her backpack. “Thanks.” She pulled it on, sliding it up over her forehead so it caught most of the stray strands of pale hair and pulled them back from her face. She left the brim low, over her eyes. “You see. What would I do without you.” She make another attempt at persuading the thick nylon bag containing her equipment to stay on her shoulder and stepped out into the crushing sunlight.

“Don’t forget to eat,” she called out. “And drink a lot of water. You can dehydrate in no time here, believe me.” She started down the crumbly rocks, all black and grey like compacted ashes, before turning back. “And if you’re looking for something to do, you can always start by tidying things up. Try and find a place for everything.”

She turned back, setting off down to the beaches and her precious turtles.

He had arrived on Pei two days ago. From the boat it had barely seemed an island, just black rocks poking up from the blue-green ocean, windswept and possessing no shelter, no trees, just small stubbly shrubs and small dry thorny plants that hugged the ground. As they got closer he saw that the beaches were also black. It was gritty volcanic gravel and dirt and not the great yellow sandy expanses he’d imagined.

Peter had cut the diesel motor on the small fishing boat, letting the current pull it along the lee side of the oval land mass — on the maps, or at least those detailed enough to feature it, it looked, fittingly enough, just like a turtle’s shell emerging from the surrounding sea — until they reached the floating jetty that the research teams had built leading up to the shallows in the half shadow of the low cliff. He wasn’t really called Peter, but his real name was so unpronounceable and Peter was close enough for the occasional tourist and, more regular, research teams to use. He was short, shorter than the boy even, but stockier and strong looking. He looked sort of Mediterranean with a heavy blue beard and was tanned almost an olive colour. But when he took off his wraparound sunglasses, his irises were egg-shell blue, and his eyes almost almond shaped.

“They’ve been lots of invaders, lots of sailors and travellers through these parts over the centuries,” his mother said when she saw him staring at the eyes.

Peter also had two scars on his right cheek, a mishmash of his thick black stubble and shocking pink flesh, all puckered up like arseholes or bullet wounds. The aftermath of an operation to remove malignant melanoma, skin cancer. His mother had interrogated Peter with typical scientific curiosity, as cold and exact as a scalpel, reformulating his answers from the broken English they used to communicate.

“It’s an occupational hazard out here,” she said, turning to her son. “All this sun. And reverberating off the sea only makes it worse. Let that be a warning to you. Keep yourself well covered and top up the sunblock regularly.”

She had white stripes left by the zinc oxide on her cheeks and nose.

“Isn’t it dangerous for him? I mean, if he got it once, can’t he get it again? Why does he keep coming out?” he asked.

His mother was holding on to a rail under the side window in the small hot cabin. She turned to face Peter again. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the throttles, his eyes reading the water ahead.

“I got boat. I got work. No boat, no work. How I do live and feed chil’run then?” he shrugged.

As they drifted down the lee of the island, the waves grew smaller. The boat stopped pitching as it was trying to buck them. It glided with Peter giving short thrusts on one of the controls, correcting their course, then throwing the motors into reverse when the boat came alongside the jetty that seemed more like flotsam from some wreck than something that had been built. It was just planks and oil drums and canisters roped together. Where the jetty met the shore was an empty flag pole, just a pole and a rope and a pulley at the top, clicking in the wind, and below this was a weather-beaten sign in three languages — English, Spanish and some sort of sharp squiggly script that was probably the local idiom — proclaiming that the island was a Nature Reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and it was forbidden for the public to debark here. It was signed by some Governor’s Office and nearly a whole alphabet of initials and squiggles.

His mother looked up into the air, as if hunting out for some sign, and then adjusted the heavy chronograph on her wrist to local time. She climbed over the side, carrying a thick rope and started to tie the boat to one of the supports on the jetty. Peter finished the job, pulling the ropes tight and threading complicated knots around the poles. His mother shaded her eyes, holding a hand up under the brim of her cap, and inspected the small lump of the island.

It was the first time he really saw it, in other than photos or the view from the swaying and pitching boat. Yet it felt to him like the island was just a bigger boat with all that rocking and wobbling still in his legs.

They had spent the rest of that day carrying boxes and packets along the rickety path, loading the rubber dinghy with the water canisters and the heavy stuff, pushing and pulling, splashing and hauling, stacking and counting. He got sunburn, and the black gritty sand got everywhere.

That night his mother had lit a fire, just a small one of mostly rubbish and scraps, and just to cheer things up.

“You’ve already noticed,” she said. “There are no trees. And there’s next to no wood gets washed up here either. Plastic bottles, nappies and worse, but practically no wood. There used to be trees, they’ve found traces. Mostly roots and bark in the peat bogs…”

“Doesn’t that burn? Peat, I mean. I thought I read somewhere…”

“This is a minimal impact project. We touch as little as humanely possible. We could probably get through the whole bog in just a season. And then it’s gone forever. Something that took the island hundreds of years to create.”

“But you said there used to be trees. Where’ve they gone, then?”

“Nobody knows for sure…”

“Perhaps they chopped them down and built a raft. To get away I mean…” he said.

He was beginning to realise that there wasn’t much to do here. No TV, minimal internet access. A radio reserved for ‘real’ emergencies…

“You might not be that wrong. That’s one of the mysteries. What happened? To the people, to the trees. Alejandro thinks this was like a staging post. One of many flung across the ocean. And it just got overused. They wore out any wildlife, trees and plants… until it was all gone. But that was the past. At the moment there are still living breathing things that need our help. They can disappear too.”

“You mean your turtles?”

“Yes, the turtles. But even they have been hunted and depleted over the years. They used to catch them and keep them down in the holds of the old sailing ships, as a source of fresh meat. Now there are only a few thousand left.”

“And that’s why you study them…”

“In part, yes. Now with their human predators gone for nearly a hundred years, why is the population still so low..?”

“So you count them…”

“That’s not all of it. We track them, follow them, try to understand. What’s so incredible is that they all come here, to the same beach like they’ve done for thousands of years to lay their eggs. All on the same night after swimming right across all the ocean.”

But Alejandro was retained back at the lab, and as they had a permit for two people, that was how he found himself stuck on a pile of rocks in the middle of the ocean, miles and miles away from everything and anyone.

After breakfast he had tidied up, then gathering things for his backpack — water, or course, dried fruit, a book, a camera… — He changed into walking shoes, which meant socks, even in the heat, but even if he ignored his mother’s warnings, yesterday’s unpacking had shown how incredibly sharp the rocks could be. Already his shins and knees were covered with a multitude of small cuts and bruises. He picked up a GPS, switching it on to check the battery as his mother had shown him, and set off to explore.

It felt funny not having to shut and lock the door.

He walked down to the beach and the jetty, planning to walk off to the right as far as he could. His mother’s beaches, off to the left, were out of bounds. As the gritty black sand crunched underfoot he realised he didn’t even have a telephone or anything to call his mother. He realised, for the first time, how alone they really were.

He came across the water trickling over the rock face after about an hour’s walk. It glistened and plocked where it dripped. There were also slight greenish smears outlining the path, some deposit accumulated along the edges.

He dipped a finger in, then tentatively licked it. The water wasn’t salty. It tasted faintly of earth and vegetation and what he imagined were the minerals it had leeched out of the rocks and poor soil. Yet there was so little of it. Cupping his hand under a drip, it took minutes to create a small pool, not even big enough to fill a small thimble.

His mother had said there was no fresh water on the island, that was why they’d had to transport all the water canisters yesterday. Why at any one time they always had to have twice the estimated supply in case Peter couldn’t get through for one of the designated drop-off dates. It wasn’t yet the rainy season with gales and typhoons and everything that could last for weeks, but even so, squalls and small local storms could easily stop him getting through for days on end.

He calculated. Even supposing this could only collect one litre every two hours… That was still more than ten litres a day. And this was the dry season, probably the worse time for water. Perhaps at other times they could collect… twenty litres a day, he estimated.

He pulled the GPS unit to get a fix on the spot. The small screen showed radiating bars flowing up and outwards, but that was all. No signal. He stepped back, moving the small box from side to side, but there was still nothing. He’d have to find some other way to mark the spot.

Looking back, even knowing the trickle of water was there in the shadows he realised how easy it was to not see it, to just walk past and never notice the water. He scanned the beach. There was nothing to mark the spot, no flotsam or jetsam on the tideline, no trees, no bushes. Even his footsteps disappeared in the chaos of the black sand.

He made a mental list of useful stuff he didn’t have with him: chalk, that would show up fine against the rocks; rope, if he needed to climb or down the low cliffs and rockfaces… Then he started to get fanciful: a deep freeze stocked with pizza; a microwave; satellite TV and internet access; videogames and DVDs…

He looked back at the rocks. Now it was impossible to make out even the tiny gully where the water dribbled down. He stared at the shadows, imagining faces and forms, heads and hands and figures frozen in different postures, as if the wall was a frieze. Slowly it came to him that he wasn’t inventing the forms, they were already there, rows of pictures like a comic book across the small cliff. He tried to make out the story, but he felt he was not seeing the complete picture. Parts were worn and missing, lichen scattered like ash, obscuring the edges and the clarity.

He fished for the digital camera in his backpack, hardly daring to take his eyes away from the scenes in case he lost them. He lined up fragments in the viewfinder: a figure standing among trees; what looked like a large many-legged worm, or it could be many people carrying a tree trunk on their heads and shoulders; stylised waves; a long boat with its sail unfurled; a coil of rope, or a worm, or a sea-serpent. He photographed a fish motif, or perhaps they were turtles. He thought he could make out the sun, and stars, so perhaps it was the moon…

He stopped pressing the button and shielded the screen from the light to examine his photos. He saw only charcoal smudges on a mottled slate-grey background… Was he really seeing something, or was it just the same way that people see faces in a stain on the wall, or the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast?

He strained his eyes, looking at the stick figures and the carvings and the rubbings, sure that it wasn’t accidental or just a coincidence. He lifted his hand and felt out towards the rocks, towards the form of an outstretched hand. He placed his own hand over it, feeling his fingers sink into the ridges, feeling the curves match the bumps and valleys on his own hand. That couldn’t be a coincidence. He hand filled the shape as if they were made for each other.

He pushed.

The rock shifted under his hand, moving backwards.

~ ~

She could walk this path with her eyes closed, she thought as she made her way along the beach. But if she did that she’d miss the changes. Today the sea was grey where the breakers raked the shore, fading to blue and then a sort of indigo further out, and then almost black at the horizon. She saw pale shells washed up against the black sand, over there on the rocks, a turtle shell, picked clean by the crabs; tiny violet splashes where a sprig of something in the rocks had flowered.

She reached the beach The light wind flapped at the edges of the tarpaulin Alejandro and she had installed at the top of the beach. As it was in the shade, and this wasn’t the rainy season they didn’t really need it, although the meagre shelter did provide some protection against the UV reverberation and that was always appreciable.

The true sense of the shelter was elsewhere. By encouraging them to keep their equipment on the same rocky platform, they cold better control their impact on the environment, even here. Every little helps, said Alejandro.

She dumped her bags, reset her cap, pulling back the strnds if hair that were sticking to the transpiration on her temples and forehead, and pulled out a tube of sun-block to renew the layers on exposed skin. It was still only morning but she could already feel the sun pulling at her skin.

As she squeezed the tube and spread the white paste on her face and neck, she surveilled the thin beach, counting off the items on her mental checklist. Make sure the spots where they’d planned to set up the cameras and lights were still dry and clear. Put back the securing rope along the base of the low cliffs in case she needed a handhold at high tide. When the tide was out, verify the topography of the beach and note any changes. She had to check the GPS signal from the transmitters fitted to the handful of sample turtles and plot their progress, and then, if she had any time left, patiently rake and sieve through the sand for unhatched eggs. It was going to be a busy week until the turtles got here. And even busier once they did.

She screwed the stopper back on the tube and looked back along the beach. Had it been a good idea to bring him along? When Alejandro had had to drop out it had seemed a perfect opportunity to spend more time together during his school holidays.

Together! she snorted. If you call being stuck on the same plot of volcanic rock in the middle of an inhospitable ocean, being together. She’d have to get him to talk about his day when they met up that evening.

And with that, she turned back to her work.

~ ~

Inside the cave, everything was fresh and damp and dark. He took off his sunglasses, letting them dangle from the cord round his neck, and, arms outstretched, shuffled over the smooth rocks, advancing like someone just learning to walk. A torch would be really useful, he thought. They had some back at the camp, ready in their boxes for when the turtles would arrive.

He stepped in a pool of water, hearing the splash echo off the walls. With the thick waking boots he hadn’t felt a thing. Nonetheless he shifted back, it could be just a puddle, but it could also be a deep pool.

He stood there, listening to the sound of his own breathing.

Surely there should be more light, he thought, the light from outside. He turned, careful not to fall into the water.

He was surrounded by darkness.

~ ~

She put down the water bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Then looking at the dots on the laptop screen, she took off her cap and ran her fingers through her hair, as if trying to massage the air through to her scalp and work away the heat and transpiration. She looked over at the screen. The map refreshed lazily, rectangle after rectangle. The little cloud of dots didn’t seem to have moved, but she knew this wasn’t true. With the currents there they could be advancing at about thirty miles an hour. Every two minutes, when the map refreshed, they could have covered a new mile.

She slipped the cap up on her brow, catching her hair again and flattening it against her head. Then she pulled the brim down to her sunglasses, effectively hiding her forehead. She leaned over and pushed the laptop closed. Don’t waste the battery, she thought. No waste. It had become a mantra. That and making the smallest possible impact on the environment. But what was there really to preserve here? A few rocks, some bogs, crumbling beaches, a few shrubs and small plants that struggled against the heat, the drought and the constant drying winds. There was a stark beauty here, but that was only humans could see. Or was it? Could the place still be beautiful when there was no-one to see it? That sounded sort of Zen. She’d have to ask Alejandro what he thought.

She carried her bags on aching shoulders back across the beach towards the shelter.

~ ~

He felt the dark pressing in, crushing him.

How come he hadn’t seen or felt the entrance closing, he wondered. he wasn’t sure of the direction back, now he had turned. He thought he was probably facing the right way, but he could easily be looking off to one side.

He stilled his breathing and willed his heart to beat more quietly. The sea, he thought, surely I should still hear the waves breaking on the shore. Even a murmur would be a clue as to the right direction. He could hear a faint hiss or rushing sound, barely audible above his breathing, just a constant wash of sound but with no clear direction as, tentatively, he moved his head to the right and the left. Bt he wasn’t sure this was the sea. He seemed to remember reading something about this noise, that it was always there, the noise of your inner ear or your nervous system or something. Even people in sensory deprivation chambers that block out all outside sounds said they could hear it.

He felt the coolness all around settle on his skin. Either that or he was breaking out in a cold sweat. Being aware of his body, he remembered he was still holding the digital camera. Surely it had a flash… He lifted it, brushing his thumb against the button at the top, activating it without actually taking a photo. Instantly the screen danced in front of his eyes, burning itself into his vision. He screwed his eyes shut and the afterimage glowed and danced. He opened his eyes, blinking, as if to force out the image in tears, and this time concentrated his attention on the small, bright screen. He flicked through the menus until he had activated he flash. He held the camera down on his chest, estimating that there was less chance that the flash should accidentally blind him. It brushed against his sunglasses. Should he put them back on? If the light was too strong they might preserve his vision. But finally the idea of wearing sunglasses when it was pitch black, seemed altogether too strange.

He steeled himself and pressed the button.

~ ~

As she walked up the sloping beach to the camp she was surprised to see that there was no light. The sky was turning violet, with black streak above the horizon. Already a handful of stars twinkled. Quite soon it would be completely dark but already it was impossible to see anything inside the camp.

She had expected him to be waiting for her, waiting and looking out. In her dreams he would come bounding down like a puppy, panting and excitedly telling her about the day’s adventures, but that son seemed long gone. In all probability he’d sulk and not meet her eyes, and moan about the long day.

She climbed up onto the wooden platform under the heavy canvas that made up the veranda and banged her boots, shaking off the sand. She stopped. Perhaps he was sleeping. The days out here could be exhausting, especially at first what with the sea air and the near constant winds. It took it all out of you.

She dumped her bags and looked around for a lantern, or a torch. Dusk was falling rapidly now and everything had turned to shades of grey. As she felt around, she couldn’t remember what they had unpacked, and what they’d left for later. Delicately she felt along surfaces taking care not upset and break anything.

The hammock was empty.

She had brushed aga

inst it in the half-light and could tell by the way it swung free. She walked through patted his sleeping bag down. He wasn’t there either.

She paused, wondering what to do next.

She couldn’t have lost him. He had just been overtaken by the rapidity of nightfall. The best thing to do was to get some lights on, give him something to aim at on his way back.

Eventually she set her hand down on a box of matches on a rickety shelf. Just next to a storm lantern. Soon she was busy lighting up the camp.

~ ~

The walls exploded into a mess of colours.

At first he flinched, regretting he hadn’t put his sunglasses back on. Colour wove and gyrated all around. So much so that for a moment he felt dizzy, or as if he had just got off the boat and could still feel the sea lurching in his legs.

Then, slowly, he realised that this wasn’t the afterimage if the flash he was seeing, but the light glowing from the walls of the cave. The sudden flash had somehow woken it up.

The colours seemed to crawl, snakelike, around the forms. It must be some sort of photoluminescent reaction. The walls had absorbed the light and were now using it to shine back and illuminate the drawings.

While the forms and figures here were more precise, clearer than the more worn and weathered carvings outside, they were also slightly blurred, slightly out of focus, or as if he was seeing them through a frosted glass.

He saw the sea, this time with stylised fishes and turtles, but he could now also see the details of scales and the patterns on the shells. He also noticed that he seemed to see all this more clearly if he didn’t look at it directly, but sort of glanced at the pictures, or caught them at the edge of his vision.

He saw the sailing boats, but also canoes, scalloped and decorated with swirling geometric patterns that seemed, at moments, to resemble the scales and shells and waves, as if everything was one, just parts of the same whole, or just echoing a barely different note in the same scale.

He saw a land covered in trees and in whose branches there were birds and small animals. Lizards climbed trunks and sunned themselves on rocks, and insects played in the air about. As he looked he fancied he could hear them nearby, buzzing lazily just out of sight. He saw water gathering in pools, bubbling up from springs…

He saw the people who had lived here, cutting down trees and carrying them to the beaches, picking fruit from the trees, chasing some sort of hairy pig through the bushes and then spearing it and carrying it back aloft to the others before roasting it over a fire. There were others spearing fish, and smaller ones who he took to be children gathering shells and small creatures in the rock pools. The people on the wall appeared happy and industrious, and occasionally stopped what they were doing to dance and play. In fact, he felt he could sometimes hear the faint drumming of their music.

He followed the cycle of seasons, saw them planting and tending to crops and to the trees, saw the activities rhythming their days, the months rolling into seasons, the seasons into years.

Still the forms played out on the walls, moving and sliding along, washing over each other, swelling and then shrinking like the waves on the black stone beaches.

He saw the turtles, hundreds, thousands of them, crawling up the beaches under the light of a full moon held high like a lantern, scraping at the abrasive grit laboriously, digging holes to lay eggs that lay white and bare like pearls in the sand, sparkling like the stars in the night sky above. Then turtles then hid their treasure, pushing the darkness to bury them, and patted down the small mounds with flipper that ached from the effort, from the long journey, from the hard rough sand. And now they pulled themselves forwards, back towards the water and the journey home.

He saw this repeat, year after year after year, and the arrival of the turtles wove itself into the dances and the rhythm of the people on the island.

Then he noticed something else. It had been gradual and so not obvious, but as time passed it became more and more apparent. There were more and more people now on the island, working, planting, building, caring, playing and dancing, but fewer and fewer trees, the birds and lizards became rarer, the large hairy pigs that they had chased could no longer be seen. But still the turtles came. Until he saw someone standing on the beach under a low red moon, holding a spear at the ready. As the first water scrambled out of the water and up onto the sand, the spear flew and pierced the creature through a fleshy neck. Others gathered round and rolled the animal onto its back where it died, waving flippers and heavy with unlaid eggs.

There were disputes and fights now among the islanders as more and more turtles were massacred when they emerged from the crimson waters. Islanders cut trees and hollowed out canoes, and left the island and the years continued, now rhythmed by the killing of the turtles.

Great ships appeared, heavy under a multitude of sails. Men rowed to shore and exchanging greetings with the islanders shot and massacred them before piling the boats high with turtles and leaving the straggle of survivors to shelter under the few remaining bare trees.

This too became part of the rhythm of the dance until the islanders learned to flee at the first sight of the white sheets on the horizon, only daring return when the shallow row boats, weighed down with turtles and plunder had rejoined the great masted ships, hauled anchor and left. And in the pauses between the departures and arrivals, the island grew to resemble what he had seen from the boat when they had first arrived: just a few black, barren rocks braving the ocean waves.

The vision faded as he saw faces and hands in the cave, carving and printing the story of the island for those who would come later and wonder. The vision faded and once again he was surrounded by the thick cloying darkness.

He had lost track of all time. He rubbed his eyes and tried to decide if he had been watching for just minutes, or perhaps years as he remember the details of the story he had just lived.

He sat cross-legged and then as exhaustion overtook him, lay down on his back and closed his eyes.

~ ~

She looked at the chronograph on her wrist. It was just after 9 pm, local time and quite dark outside.

She’d checked for a note, and checked again. Then she’d tried to determine what was missing. His walking shoes, his rucksack, those were obvious. After that she’d given up. There was no way of knowing even if the searching and counting had kept her from worrying too much.

She lit another lantern and carried it down to the flag pole, hoisting it up against the sky. From there it was visible from all over the island. For miles out to sea too, she imagined.

Up to now she’d managed to resist the urgent need to go out and look for him, telling herself he’d be back in a moment, that he couldn’t have gone far — not here —, that he’d just lost track of time and been surprised by the sudden nightfall, telling herself that panicking and running off into the night was the surest way for something to happen to herself. But as time dragged on and she walked back up the beach she decide she couldn’t put it off any longer and prepared to leave.

She left a note on the table and packed a small rucksack with essentials; water, dried fruit, protein bars. A thick woollen sweater as soon it would be getting quite cold with no cloud cover to hold back the day’s heat. A torch. A first aid kit. This she picked up and then put down, shaking her head. No, better be prepared. She told hold of it again.

She unpacked a walkie-talkie, planning to leave one on the table next to her message and stopped. Did she remember unpacking one last night and stuffing it into his rucksack just in case? Or had she just intended to do it before abandoning herself to sleep? She shook the boxes one after the other, but only got as far as the third when she knew she had been righ. The box was empty.

She snatched up the small radio and pressed the button.

“Where are you? I’m worried sick here. What are you getting up to?”

She took her thumb off the button and waited.

Nothing.

In fact, the walkie-talkie hadn’t hissed when she’d pressed the button, she realised. A sure sign that the other one wasn’t switched on. Of course, no-one was going to leave them on all the time. It just wastes the batteries.

It was useless.

She was about to throw it back into the box with the others when she decided to have a good look at it.

On the other side was a small red flap. She prised it up with her fingernail. There was a small red button in the recess underneath and embossed in tiny letters on the back of the flap were the words: ALARM PRESS. She pressed.

In the box on the table, the other walkie-talkies screeched, stopping as soon as she lifted her finger in surprise.

Now she knew how to locate him!

She pocketed the radio and, as a precaution, removed the batteries of the four remaining ones in the packing case. She didn’t want their signal giving her false directions or covering up the sound of just one buried in the bottom of a rucksack.

Electric torch in hand in hand she set off down the beach, turning right to follow the path he’d most probably taken and stopping every hundred steps to press the red button and listen intently.

~ ~

He woke, his senses lost in a riot of squirming lights and turtles scraping at the crusty sand. And mixed in there, the sound of an alarm clock, dragging him back awake.

He reached out to silence it and switch on a light. His hand closed on grit and rock. He opened his eyes to a splash of stars across a sky so dark he felt it had depths he was falling up and into. Far out, behind him, a gibbous moon hung fat and yellow on the horizon. He sat up, supporting himself in his hands, feeling aches and bruises from his shoulders and back. Opposite him the moonlight blocked in highlights and shadows on the rockface.

The alarm screamed again, from just behind his back. he twisted round, his back and shoulders sending out twinges of pain at the sudden movement, before realising that the sound was coming from his backpack.

The alarm stopped.

He pulled off the backpack, fumbled to open it and started pulling out the contents. At the bottom he found the small yellow and black walkie-talkie. He found the switch on the side, turned it on, and then pushed his thumb down on the transmit button. It gave out a burst of static.

“Mum..?” he said, lifting his thumb for the reply and wincing at the hiss of static in his ear.

“Where are you? Are you hurt? Over.”

“Ah, Mum. I’m on the beach. I’m… I’m not sure… it’s weird.” He lifted his thumb then pressed it down again. “Over. I mean, I’m alright. I’m fine. Over.”

When they met he tried to tell her what had happened, the words tumbling and jumbling as he stumbled along the beach at her side. Her face was closed as she tried not to demonstrate her relief, tried to impose a distance to show her worry and anger. But as the words poured out she stopped and turned to him, taking first his wrist and hen gently touching his forehead.

“Are you sure it’s not sunstroke?” she said. “You did remember to drink lots of water, didn’t you? I did warn you…”

“No mum, it’s for real,” he said. “I can take you back and show you.” He stopped, hit his hand against his forehead. “The camera. I got pictures.”

He pulled off the backpack rummaging through before emptying it on the sand.

He mother shone her torch as he picked over the contents.

“It’s not here. I must have… We’ve got to go back,” he said, standing up.

“No,” she said. “Not in this light. You’ll never find anything anyway.”

“But…”

“No.”

He followed her back to the camp in sullen silence.

When they arrived at the flag pole he looked up at the lantern glowing at the top. She shrugged before lowering it and carrying it up the beach.

The camp now appeared alien, the canvas cover to the veranda, the rough wooden walls, as if it had been uprooted on another planet and then dumped down on the black rocks and sand. Which, in a way, was the case. It didn’t belong here. None of them did. The island needed to be left alone. He felt it clearly as he looked around by the light of the moon and the dancing sun he mother was carrying. The island needed time to heal its wounds.

She took his temperature, scowling at the instrument when it refused to show anything out of the ordinary and then watched over him as he drank deeply from the water bottle. She rehydrated some soup over a primus stove.

“Don’t you dare do that again, young man,” she said, not looking at him as she cleaned up after their silent meal.

“No one get hurt,” he said to her stiff back. “I’m all right and—”

“You could have been. Hurt. Injured. Lost…”

“Hard to get lost here, no?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Mum, you’re over-reacting. Psssh!” he said, lifting his hands. “Don’t blow a gasket.”

She turned and looked at him. His cheeks and nose shone red in the light from the lanterns, but she wasn’t sure if it was the day’s sun, the emotion, of the warmth of the meal.

“Anyway, I’ve gotta go back tomorrow. Find the camera. Find that cave again. It could be a major discovery,” he beamed.

She grunted.

“More likely hallucinations. Delirium. Brought on by the sun.”

“Nah, it’s real. I’ll show you.”

“Whatever you do, take a radio with you. And…”

He looked at his mother, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes and make things worse.

“…drink lots of water. That’s real. That’s serious.” She paused. “I’m going to sleep. I’ve had enough for one day.”

“Night.”

“Night.”

The next day she got up early to attack the paperwork she had neglected that last evening. Writing up the previous day’s activity, transcribing her notes and expanding comments. She compressed the files and two lines of apology for the delay. Then she queued up the message to go out over the tenuous satellite link later in the day.

She dusted down her laptop with a soft flat paintbrush she’d brought along specially for the purpose. The gritty sand here killed the computing equipment in no time, already she could feel certain keys crunch as she typed, and the abrasion and the intense UV light inevitably turned the screens milky white. Of course, they couldn’t afford the military grade equipment that, supposedly, resisted everything.

She heated water for breakfast, then sat down on the edge of the veranda with a mug of tea and some muesli, watching the sea and the sky change from mother of pearl through a range of pastel colours that seemed almost fluorescent at times while the light breeze wafted by with the perfumes of the ocean. She breathed deeply, thankful to be there, drinking it all in.

~ ~

He woke to find her gone, the sun darting its rays through cracks in the shack and touching the pile of goods — torch, walkie-talkie, water… — on the table next to the slate with her message.

‘Take care. Get back earlier today. Your turn to cook. X. Mum.’

He rubbed his eyes then stuffed everything into his backpack and set off down the beach, chewing on a protein bar for breakfast, stopping only to pee into the ocean. A bevy of sea birds stood ankle deep in the water, their backs turned to him. He ran at them hoping to send them scattering and cawing into the air but only one or two bothered to turn a beak in his direction before turning back to gaze on the breakers further out. And when he swooped back again, kicking water, splashing them and shouting, only one bird condescended to shuffle aside as if they were ignoring him, or worse still, shutting him out altogether.

He turned and began retracing his steps from the day before.

~ ~

She set her equipment down under the shelter. She set up the satellite connection and opened the laptop. It was a habit, a ritual even: she always started and ended her day by watching the turtles slow progress across the ocean.

Windows opened on the computer as it made the connected in, sent off her mail, downloaded any waiting messages and scraped the latest tracking data from the lab’s servers. If Alejandro was there he might even notice the lights blinking on one of the lab computers as she grabbed the packets of data.

She looked at her chronograph, at the second set of hands that were still on ‘lab time’ as she called it. It was mid-afternoon back home she noted. Alejandro was probably there.

The map opened automatically on the laptop’s screen, rectangles flapping down into place. And then it stopped, a message flashing at the top of the window.

She looked over.

‘ERROR: NO DATA’, read the message.

“Damn!” she muttered. The data file must have got corrupted. She switched windows and hunted for the downloaded file. When she opened it, it was empty, just like the mapping application had said. No data.

She opened a chat window.

Slowly it came to life, taking its time to display anything because of the tremendous lag on the satellite link. Eventually she saw Alejandro’s name light up in her contact list.

’> Theres a problem wth turtle data,’ she typed.

’> Hi,’ came the reply, appearing slowly, one letter after the other. > no problm. just no data.’

She had started to reply when the message continued: ‘> read yor mail.’

In her e-mail she saw the message from Alejandro. Angry with herself for not thinking to look there first, she clicked and read.

The tracking data from the GPS units on the turtles had stopped arriving about 8 hours ago. As it was highly improbable that all the devices had failed at exactly the same time, they had, at first, supposed a problem in the network, and then the satellite relaying the information. While they weren’t completely sure, the technicians working on the ocean surveillance satellite they had piggybacked their data on said they were 98% sure everything was fine. They’d need another 12 hours to give a total all clear.

Alejandro had then checked weather reports and examined pictures and maps from various sources to be sure there wasn’t a freak storm or bad weather blocking the signals. But on that front, everything was clear too.

He was even trying to get someone near the area to do flyover and some more detailed arial photos, or beg some time on an observational satellite, all the time updating the estimate path of the bale of turtles. This zone was getting progressively larger and larger as time passed.

There was a later mail explaining that he’d managed to recover some images — from friends of friends, and calling in some favours — of the zone, and even now he had interns and a postdoc pouring over the data, particularly anything in the infrareds, looking for a cloud of dots that could be their turtles. But as time passed, hopes were fading. It was becoming more and more likely they had disappeared elsewhere. But where? What had happened to disturb a habit that was thousands of years old.

Chatting over the laggy satellite link, they decide that she’d continue the preparations. Some of them were sure to turn up.

She switched off the laptop and looked at the empty beach, at the empty shell over by the rocks, at the empty sky without even a mare’s tail of clouds to break the oppressive blue.

She pulled her cap off and ran her fingers through her hair.

~ ~

He found the camera. It had taken a dent where he’d dropped it and was covered in grit. He put it into his bag. He’d get his mum to help clean it up, she probably had the right sort of kit for it. She always did. It was infuriating in some ways, reassuring in others.

He walked up the beach, looking for yesterday’s footprints and the rockface where he’d first seen the trickle of water. But there was nothing. Where he felt the cave should be was a chaos of rocks collapsed into a short gully up to the barren plateau above.

He swigged water from the bottle and continued searching until mid-afternoon when suddenly tired and frustrated he headed back to camp.

~ ~

She couldn’t bring herself to believe that the turtles could disappear just like that. She was sure that in a couple of days she would greet them as they emerged from the salt sea waves, scratching and pulling their way up the moonlit beach. There would be some mindless technical explanation for the signals’ disappearance, there had to be. A defect in the casings, a dud lot of batteries. Those were the sort of bone-headed, predictable things that just happened. Because of budgets, like for the laptops. Because of human error, because however much everyone believed in Science as some abstract ideal, it was just another human activity with limits and compromises and errors and all that that implied.

She brushed down the camera for him, wiped it clean with anti-static swabs and downloaded the murky grey, out-of-focus images to the computer where he perused them in frustration, playing with balance and contrast and levels and trying to find some sense in the blurring and the artifacts.

The next few days passed as if the island had shrunk to pen them in. She took her daily walks to the beach like a prisoner getting a few hours of sunlight out in the yard, walking a path rendered invisible through its familiarity. He stayed around the camp and sulked and read. They managed a walk over to one of the bogs but when they got there there was nothing to see, just squishy patches of spongy soil. So much so, she had to tell him they’d arrived or he’d have kept on walking, right on to the end of the land.

One night a shower broke the monotony and they revelled in the new sound of water rattling on the roof and walls, then hurried out to pull everything under shelter and throw plastic sheeting over the boxes under the leaks. But it passed as quickly as it arrived and the sun the next morning burned the puddles into vapour almost before they were up and about until the shower seemed nothing but an agitated dream.

The night the turtles were due came as a welcome interruption, a relief.

He helped carry boxes, setting up projectors and the cameras, plugging and testing and sweating from the exertion. He pulled on sweaters and oilskins as the sky darkened with heavy clouds puffing up over the horizon. The moon was full but wouldn’t rise until later, said his mother, checking figures off of charts.

They sat with Thermoses of hot soup, tea and chocolate and waited up in the small shelter. Alejandro was present via the chat window. He’d told them earlier that all technical problems had finally been ruled out for the turtles’ disappearance. And a week of pouring over satellite imagery hadn’t revealed anything promising. Maybe he wasn’t joking when he’d said he wasn’t sure if the lab would still be there when she got back. After all, what good was a lab if the subject of your principal study had just vanished off the face of the Earth, mid-ocean. She forced a half smile and proposed they turn their attention to unexplained marine disappearances and localised extinction events. Especially in the area around the Bermudas.

At just after three in the morning he left her to go back to the camp and get some sleep.

~ ~

The turtles didn’t come. Not that year. Not the year after that.

Three days later, when they’d finished packing, Peter arrived in his boat to take everything away.

She was white-lipped, squeezing the rail tight as she looked back at the barren black island and it seemed to slip back under the waves as they got further and further away until finally it disappeared from view. And still she looked. But whether it was for the island or the turtles he didn’t know.

postscript

“Years later I remember reading a story, probably one of those urban legends, but that doesn’t really matter. It was about an incident that took place just before the major blackout on the American East Coast in 1965. This electricity failure left most major cities there without any power for hours in a very cold November. In this story a kid kicked a lamppost. And the lights went out. Even though it was later determined exactly how the power lines failed, this kid couldn’t get over the feeling of guilt that it was his kick that had caused the blackout.

“And I knew just how he felt.

“I couldn’t get over the feeling that what I’d seen in that cave, whatever it was, was somehow responsible for the turtles disappearing like that. Sure there were crazy theories — fishing trawlers, military manœuvres, a gas bubble or a giant wave — Mum even investigated some. But I felt that the island had waited all that time to tell its story, and once that was done. Pff! Everything was over. Now they could all move on and get on with something else.

“But I’ve still got those photos, and some days when I look at them, and just let my mind wander, I catch glimpses of what I saw. And then I put them away and think how crazy I must be getting…”

THE END

I have no idea where this story came from even though I do like it.

Anyway, it is the last story for a little while. Please see this journal entry for more information. And thanks for reading and being part of the journey.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

The day that concerns us is no different.

He pushed his chair under his desk, grabbed his coat and waved to those colleagues still working. Then he took the lift down to the car park.

Because this was just an ordinary day, there were no zombies staggering through blood-spattered corridors, no brigands waiting to ambush the unwary, and no mysterious but malevolent force seeking to entrap him in the lift.

He got into his car, reaching automatically for the seat belt. And then stopped, suspended in his movement.

There was a young woman in his car.

There was a very naked young woman sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

“What are you—?” he started, one hand still stretching the seat belt across his chest, the other still pointing the ignition key towards its socket.

She was very naked. And very pink, he couldn’t stop himself from noticing. She had a mass of blond hair that cascaded down onto her shoulders with a hint of ginger highlights. She had very pale nipples on her breasts, and showed no tan marks. Just this unreal pink skin, as if he was looking at a doll.

She turned and smiled.

He saw goose pimples on her arm, and pale golden hairs that caught the ceiling light.

“I was waiting for you,” she said, and smiled again.

She had a pleasant smile that lit her face and showed her lips like some pale red fruit. Her smile lit up her eyes too, and the light seemed to flicker there like clouds on water.

“How did you—?” he started again. “Look, you’re gonna have to get out right now…”

She shook her head, still smiling.

“Oh no, not now,” she said. “Not now I’ve found you.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” he said.

He looked around, expecting to see colleagues laughing, slapping their thighs and nudging each other in the ribs.

The car park was empty. The strip lighting above illuminating each and every bare concrete wall and corner.

“You’ve got no clothes on,” he said at last. “You do know, don’t you?”

She nodded and bit at her lower lip a little sheepishly.

He sighed, stepped out of the car and took off his coat.

“Put this on,” he said, passing it over the gear box and the handbrake. “Before anyone sees you…”

He watched her slip pink arms into the sleeves, saw the smooth curves if her breasts lift before she pulled the coat round her, and smoothed it on her thighs.

“Thank you,” she said. “I knew I’d chosen right this time.”

“Chosen! What do you mea—?”

“Stop worrying.” She put a finger to his lips. He smelt strawberries and hay, apples and cinnamon. And… gingerbread. For a moment he was transported back to his childhood, and lost there. “I knew you’d be perfect as soon as I saw you. The others hit me, pushed me out. Some even sought to violent me…”

“What?” He couldn’t remember seeing any marks or bruises on that soft skin. “Do you want me to take you to the Police? A Hospital?” Or an asylum, he thought, but kept the idea to himself, just in case…

“Oh no. I’m fine just now.” She pulled on the lapels of the coat, putting them up around her ears then burying and rubbing her face in them. “It smells just like you,” she said.

“Look, you can’t stay here,” he said. Firmly, he hoped.

“Yes, you’re quite right. You have to take me home with you.”

“Ok,” he said at last. And it was as if an enchantment had fallen on him. Like a fish that has been struggling against the hook, that suddenly stops and waits as the line is reeled in.

He has been married for a little over four years. His wife stays at home and does volunteer work during the day. A couple of afternoons at a charity shop, home visits three days a week, and general paperwork. For the moment they can live on what he brings in, but sometimes he worries that there situation is, perhaps, a little precarious. Especially at the moment with what seem like glacially cold winds huffing and puffing through entire sectors of the economy.

They’ve talked about having children. They both agree they’d quite like to, but not yet. Later. We never know what can happen. Who knows, his wife would say, maybe I’ll have to find a paying job. Help keep the wolf from the door.

He parked the car in its usual spot and looked around to see if any of the neighbours were around. Even if she was wearing his coat, he was sure that anyone would realise with just a glance that she was stark naked underneath. Well, if someone did notice, he could always say she was one of his wife’s waifs…

As usual, he slipped round to the back door of the cottage. He walked in front as he felt he needed to explain things first. Or at least, to try to. Thinking about it now, he wasn’t sure he could.

“Hello dear. I’m home,” he called. “Er… And we’ve got a visitor,” he added.

His wife stepped into the kitchen, her black hair cut short about her ears, and framing a pale face. And even wearing old jeans and a blue sweater, she gave the impression of being impeccably dressed.

“Oh,” she said, although she didn’t appear to be the slightest bit put out as the other woman danced across the doorstep letting the coat flap free and revealing her total absence of clothes underneath.

“Oh dear,” he said. “I think this is going to be a little difficult to explain…”

He stood sheepishly, still holding the car keys. He usually kept them in his coat pocket.

“Don’t you worry yourself,” said his wife. She kissed him on the cheek, lingering and staring at the other all the while with icy blue eyes before smiling at him, lifting the keys from his hand, and giving him a quick proprietary tap on the bottom. “Go and freshen up,” she said. “I’m sure us girls can find something to talk about.”

He looked about her for a second, as if waiting for a delayed reaction, before obediently padding off to the hallway and beyond.

His wife turned back to the other woman who was now leaning an arm on the back of one of the high stools, her other hand hidden in the folds of the coat.

“Hello,” smiled the other.

“Your tricks won’t work on me,” said the wife. “So leave him alone. And that’s his coat you’re wearing. You’d better give it back before you leave.”

“I can’t. He gave it to me. We’re going to get married and live happily ever after.”

“I doubt he did give it to you, even if I do believe him capable. He lent it to you, that’s all. Probably because he thought you needed it. He’s like that. Stray dogs, birds with broken wings… street folk. Sometimes there’s no stopping him. Of course…” she ended with a sigh. She looked the woman up and down, as if trying to emphasise her nakedness, but the other seemed totally unaware of her state of undress.

“So you’ve noticed too,” she said. “He’s so very perfect. So adorable.”

“And that’s why you’d better leave. Now. I don’t want him getting hurt.” She turned to look at the corridor leading to the kitchen where she’d sent her husband off a moment ago. As if his trace was still visible there.

Behind her back the other woman moved quickly, sharply.

Even faster the wife lifted a hand up over her shoulder, catching the other’s wrist. She twisted round to face her, tightening her hold on the other’s arm. The carving knife fell to the spotless tiled floor with a clatter.

The two women faced each other.

“Everything all right, dear?” came the voice from upstairs.

Both women looked up.

“Just being all fingers and thumbs. Nothing to worry about. Really,” called the wife.

In that microsecond of inattention, the other swept up a fruit bowl from the table, aiming squarely at the head. The wife blocked it with her other hand. Apples and oranges bounced down to the floor.

They stared at each other as the wife increased the tension on the wrist and, slowly, the fruit bowl came back down to rest on the table top.

The other was red-faced from the exertion, like a raspberry sauce dripping down over a pink pudding.

For a moment neither moved, then the other collapsed, pulling on the wife’s hand, pulling her forwards and towards her. The wife let go of the wrist as the other dropped to the ground and, scooping up the knife, lunged forwards.

A frying pan smacked her on the ear, sending the knife spinning and her reeling on over to the cabinets by the fridge where she gripped the countertop for support.

“Just me being clumsy again, dear,” the wife called out. “Don’t know what’s come over me tonight…”

The sound of water flowed down from upstairs, drowning out any reply.

Still wielding the frying pan, the wife moved over towards the fridge. But she stepped on an orange and her leg suddenly slid forwards leaving an opening for the other to dart forwards. And sink her teeth into the knee. She bit into the leg, tearing through the fabric, pulling at bone and cartilage and tendons. The frying pan swung down to swipe her aside, but at the very last moment the other ducked, rolling to the side and leaving the wife to control her follow-through and avoid falling, her foot sliding further on the orange pulp with crimson staining her jeans at the rip in the knee.

The wife steadied herself at the worktop and set down the frying pan, nearly dropping it as the knife plunged up and into her thigh. As the other pulled back the knife for a second blow, the wife span her other foot round, clipping the side of the other’s head and sending her sprawling to the floor.

Neither said a word, neither moved as they heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

The wife put a finger to her lips, pulled an apron from the rack and slipped it over her head as she limped towards the hallway. She smoothed it over the blood stains streaking her leg and headed her husband off at the foot of the stairs.

“Come on, dear, you can’t wear that grubby old sweater, can you?” She caressed his cheek. “Why don’t you go and put on that nice blue one I gave you last month..?”

Dutifully, he turned back up the stairs.

“Dinner’ll be ready in ten minutes of so,” she added.

“Do you need a hand?” he asked, leaning over the bannister at the top of the stairs.

“Don’t worry yourself. Everything’s under control,” she said and turned back to the kitchen.

The other was no where to be seen. Instantly she darted sideways into the front room and grabbed the poker from by the fireplace.

Back in the hallway she leaped into the air and through the door, rolling over as she landed before twisting round and bringing the poker down on the back on the other’s head as she dropped down — too late — in front of the open door.

“Naive stupid bitch. You think you’re the first to try…” she muttered as the other crumpled to the ground like a marionette whose strings have been cut. “You really thought I’d let you stroll in here and steal him, just like that?”

She put the poker in the sink, and washed away the blood and matted hair. Then she bent down to truss the other’s body, pulling kitchen twine tight about the pink legs and arms.

“Of course he’s perfect, doting, loving, caring, faithful.” She bit off another stretch of twine. “Why do think I bumped his wife off, years ago, and took her place..?”

She looked down at the body, vermillion blood shining like a crown about her head.

She pulled the body across the kitchen floor by an ankle before wrapping in bin liners and stuffing it into the deep freeze. She’ll get rid of it later. Like she’d done for the wife, like she’d done for the other ones. Under the mulberry bush in the garden when there’ll be no-one around…

She picked up a cloth and the bleach and set to cleaning the floor and the other surfaces until everything shined and was perfectly in order.

Then she waited for her husband to descend for dinner.

THE END

Not the story that I wanted to write… Oh well. And my apologies, the end was a bit brutal.

Something different next week, I promise. Until then… don’t forget to support and share.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

The perfume of roasted chestnuts hung in the air, and bonfires and somewhere behind this the damp smell of compost, rotting wood and toadstools.

A form brushed past, a white shroud fluttered on the crisp cold air and the sound of laughter like feet running through dry autumn leaves.

She turned and saw a ghost and a small red-horned demon speeding hand in hand down the lane before turning and disappearing from view.

The air rippled as, all along the street, orange lamps flickered to life, all strung together like a necklace of glowing Jack O’Lanterns.

She thought it was a delightful trick and clapped her hands, skipping around to better see the lights. And now she saw street lamps lighting up back streets and porch lights and real candles flickering through windows as if the whole place had felt her presence and lit up to welcome her.

She kicked at the leaves and laughed at the dry crackle and how they flew into the air and then fell helter-skelter like puppy dogs chasing their tails.

Two children came running down the path from one of the houses. One was dressed in a curious hat, a scarf around his neck and pantaloons. The other seemed to have been assembled from ungainly pieces of grey gun metal. Both were carrying sacks. She didn’t recognise them, but tonight was her night so she took them for her own kind.

They stopped and looked at her.

“Trick or treat?” they chanted.

She laughed and clapped her hands, rising into the air as she did.

“Wow!” said the first child as the girl floated back to the ground as softly as thistledown.

“How’d yo do that?” asked the automaton.

“Aha!” she said, overjoyed at their bewilderment. “Both a trick and a treat, I dare say.”

The two children looked at each other.

“D’you wanna come round with us?” said the one. “Trick or treating?”

“You got anything good?” asked the other. It lifted its sack. She saw it was an old and worn pillowcase.

She felt into the pockets of her smock.

“A stone, a cat’s eye, a bat’s claw, some leaves…” she said, holding the objects out on her hands.

“No sweets?” wondered the first.

“We can always share,” said the other. “We’ve got lots…”

“Sweetmeats and mischief,” said the girl. “Mischief and mayhem.”

“We usually just say ‘Trick or treat’,” said the first.

“But yours sounds kinda good,” said the second.

“He peed in the letterbox of a biddy who wouldn’t give us anything, he did,” said the child in the pewter grey blocks.

“Did not!” protested the other with a smirk.

“Did so! I saw you!”

“Nah!” the other admitted. “I just pretended.”

“And you? You done anything?” asked the one in grey.

“Oh yes,” said the girl enthusiastically. “I turned the milk, I changed the babbies, I kissed a Prince, I bewitched a farmer’s wife and cut off her hair with a carving knife…”

“Sure…” said the others looking at each other.

“C’mon,” said the first. “We haven’t got all night.” He turned to the drive way they were standing in front of. “I’m Nigel.” He pulled at the fringe on his baggy trousers. “I’m supposed to be a cowboy. Not very Hallowe’en is it? Me Mum’s idea. I really wanted to do Darth Vador,” he explained, seeing the girl’s puzzled expression. “And he’s supposed to be C3P0.”

“I made it all myself, too,” said the other.

“I made myself too,” volunteered the girl. “Especially for tonight.”

“But aren’t you supposed to dress up like someone else?” Nigel wondered.

“But I am,” huffed the girl. “Tonight I’m a little girl.”

The boys looked at each other. Nigel raised his eyebrows.

“Yes…” they said.

C3PO shrugged his shoulders.

She caught up with them when they arrived at the front door.

“Trick or treat!” they called as the door opened.

“The Lone Ranger, the Tin Man and little Miss Muffet?”

Nigel and the other recoiled.

For a split second, the image of the red-faced avuncular man in baggy mismatched jogging pants and top had been replaced by a massive hairy-legged spider, its mandibles clicking and slobbering.

“Waoh!” they called out in shock and astonishment, frozen as they turned to run away.

“That’s a new one on me,” said the man, reaching for the bowl of sweets by the door. “Now you just knock and run away..?”

“Sorry mister,” said Nigel looking around at the shadows in the front garden.

“You see…” started the robot.

The girl said nothing, but watched and smiled as the man dropped packets into the gaping mouths of the pillowcases while the boys kept him at a good arm’s length, their eyes darting from spot to spot, just in case the vision returned.

“Happy Hallowe’en,” he said as he closed the door.

The girl thought he had got off lightly and sketched a small figure in the brickwork by the door, in the shadow of one of the imitation Victorian coach lamps, as a message to other visitors who may call by tonight.

“What did you get?” asked the boy dressed as the root when they got to the pavement.

“Coupla mini Mars bars and gob smackers, I think…” said the Cowboy.

“Gobstoppers you mean. Yeah, got them too.” He showed the contents to the girl. “You want something?”

Her hand plunged in and came up with a wrapped sweet. She ripped at it, then stuffed it into her mouth. The boys looked at her.

“Mmm. It’s all choft and creamy,” she said.

“That’s generally the idea,” said the robot

The boys looked at each other again.

“I’ll take another, I’ll thank you very much.”

He hand disappeared into the bag and came up with another sweet. She pulled away the wrapping and snapped it up.

“That’s sho good,” she said. “Where can we get some more?”

“Just keep knocking on doors,” said Nigel.

“Come on then.” And she was off, trotting up the next pathway.

“Have you got soft creamy sweeties?” she asked as a woman opened the door.

“Mind your manners, Miss,” said the woman, brushing back her hair behind her ears as she looked down at the children. “Aren’t you supposed to say something first?”

“Mischief and mayhem,” said the girl. “Sweetmeats and mischief, magic and mayhem. Trick and tease.”

“I thought it was ‘Trick or treat’?” the woman insisted, ignoring the boys waving their hands and making signs behind the girl’s back. And she made a noise between a braying and a squeak and disappeared from view.

“Perhaps it’s some kind of trick…” said Nigel, as if trying to convince himself. “Like on the telly. All done with mirrors…”

“Go get the sweeties, then,” said the girl, turning to them.

“No way,” said the robot, stepping back. “Let’s go!”

“It doesn’t work like that, you know. If you ask nicely, they give you something,” added Nigel.

“We’d better be going,” insisted the robot. “Someone’ll be along.”

He looked anxiously up and down the empty street, the deserted gardens, the open door with the light from the hall spilling down the garden path.

“is she coming back?” Nigel wanted to know.

The robot tugged at his arm, urgently.

“Oh! Fiddle-dee-di!” said the girl, and the woman appeared back in the hallway.

“I thought it was ‘Trick or treat’,” she repeated, then paused, eyes wide open. She stared at the girl, at the boys, then pushed her hair back behind her ear again.

“Just give her something and we’ll scoot,” called the robot with a slightly muffled voice.

“Forget it,” said Nigel. “We’re going.”

They left the woman staring out the door, down at the empty path.

Safely on the pavement, out of the view behind the privet hedge they turned to the girl.

“Look I’m sorry,” started Nigel.

“…but you can’t come with us,” said the other.

“It’s a bit strange with you around.”

“I mean, it’s fun, but…”

“We’re better off alone, you know.”

“Trick or treat?” said the girl, smiling.

“Yeah, you’ve got it off pat now,” said the voice of the boy in the robot costume.

“No!” said Nigel. “Give her something. Quick.” He felt in his sack, grabbing a handful of sweets. “Quick, or she’ll do it to us!” He pushed his sweets at her. “Now you, Dumbo!”

The other reached down towards his sack, then looked at the girl, calculating. He froze. Great reddish-brown spots appeared on the silver-painted boxes and tubes that made up his disguise, creeping over the joints and the helmet and the breastplate.

“Nigel!” said the voice from inside. “What’s going on? I can’t move…”

“Stop it!” said the other boy. “Just take his sweets and leave him alone.”

The girl laughed rocking on her heels.

Rust covered all of the costume now, eating at the edges, exposing wires and cogs and circuits underneath.

“Ron, close you eyes! It’s just a trick. She can’t do anything. Not really.”

A cog fell out onto the flag stones, bounced and rolled away. Ron’s left arm, the one not holding the bag of sweets, looked ready to fall off as the rust and corrosion reduced it to something as fragile as lace doily.

“Nigel!” shrieked the other.

“Here, take it all,” said Nigel, pushing his pillow case at the girl. Surprised, she caught at it, taking her attention off the other. The robot slipped forward, one knee to the ground, but his costume was back: card and piping and pie tins and duct tape, all covered with spotty silver paint.

“Let’s go!” called Nigel. He snatched at the other bag of sweets and threw it on the pavement in front of the girl. “C’mon!” He pulled the robot to his feet and then down the street, peeping back over his shoulder as they hurried away.

The girl waited until they were out of sight then weighed the two bags in her hands. It was meagre pickings for the night. She helped herself to another sweet, letting the soft creaminess dissolve on her tongue, then turned to walk to the next house. There was still plenty of time for mischief and mayhem before midnight sounded and she had to return to the other place. Plenty of time to build up a stock of sweets to tide her over until she could once again walk free on All Hallow’s Eve next year.

THE END

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Big Michael stopped off at the dodgems, the big wheel, the swings, shaking a hand here, exchanging a word there as the smell of sugar and grease, the ozone from the electric arcs, the diesel and exhaust from the generators embalmed the fairground, combining to become a perfume that said ‘Come and play, come and take a chance, come and forget, come and dance, come away and forget your troubles for an evening, for a night, for a day’…

Once he got to his stand, he unlocked the great padlock on the back door and stepped inside, switching on the lights. He was greeted by the piles of stuffed toys that lined the shelves: cats and panthers, chicks and Pokemons, elephants, giraffes, monkeys and lemurs. And high up on the top, Edward looked down. In much the same way that it would cross no-one’s mind to call Big Michael ‘Micky’, he was Edward Bear, and never Teddy. For Big Michael he was more than a mascot, he was a sort of familiar. They’d taken on the stand together and he’d always worked under Edward’s watchful eye. It was a good partnership.

He set his Thermos flask under the counter, slipped the cash box back into place, cast an eye over the piles of wooden balls, then unclipped the front and lifted it up.

From outside came the first squeals and cries of the public, the music blasted over the speakers; the electronic scales, jingles and ditties rang out; the whooshs and swishes as the wheels and swings swept through the air; and the anorexic tinkling of the asthmatic pipe organ over at the Ghost Train — it could no longer hold a note and stuttered and trilled instead.

Big Michael looked up. It was early for punters. But the person standing at the counter wasn’t a punter.

Jeannie screwed up her eyes as she spoke.

“Gran’s still poorly,” she said. “She wonders if you can handle the rides again tonight…”

The sleeves of her jumper hung over her hands and flapped as she danced from one foot to the other, as if jogging on the spot.

“Tell her it’s no problem,” he said.

They needed an adult to run the Ghost Train and a strong one at that: to release the carriages and pull the lever that dangled the strings, the netting and the cloying damp rags onto the unsuspecting heads and shoulders of the passengers.

The girl screwed up her face, pressing her lips together as if she was biting back her tongue in an attempt to keep herself from saying something.

“Or perhaps I can tell her myself and you can look after the place ‘til Malky gets here…”

The girl burst into a smile, her eyes lighting up.

Big Michael reached over the counter, slipped his hands under her arms and, effortlessly, lifted her up and set her down inside the booth.

“Thanks Big Michael,” she said, looking up at him and beaming.

“You know the rules,” he said. “And don’t forget to lock the door after me.”

It was surprising that attractions like Big Michael’s stand and the Ghost Train were still around in the age of video games and DVD players, of the Wall of Death and the increasingly sophisticated rides and stands but that must be part of the pull that the funfair still held. Somewhere it was still a magical place, somehow greater than its creaky, worn and knocked together parts.

He sent Malcolm on his way, inviting him to take his time, let his little sister deal with the evening’s first punters, and climbed into place at the entrance to the Ghost Train. Painted skulls, skeletal hands, skinny bats and plump ghosts gazed down at the small crowd already waiting to board the small wagons while the pipe organ tweeted and wheezed, barely covering the sound of the compressors from round the back.

He took banknotes and coins and handed back change as he seated couples and families on the wooden seats, pulled the lever freeing the wagons to shudder their way along the rails then leaned back to pull on the ropes and pulleys to liven up the ride. He smiled as he heard the screams and squeals from inside.

For Big Michael the evening passed quickly, rhythmed by the regular arrivals and departures of the Ghost Train.

When the crowd thinned, he saw Jeannie leaning on the tent wall opposite. He nodded to her, inviting her to come and join him. She skipped over and jumped up on the wooden platform.

“Want to try your hand at the glove?” he asked.

“Can I really?”

“That’s what I’m asking you, Jeannie.. Do you want to give it a try?”

She nodded and searched the drawer for the long black glove. When Gran was in charge, the children were sometimes allowed round the back where, using the holes specially placed in the scenery, they could slip a gloved hand through and tap patrons on the head or neck, stroke hair and sometimes even pinch a fleshy upper arm and add some more thrills to the rickety ride.

The evening played out peacefully, chugging along on its own rails until, come midnight, the couples and families had deserted the Ghost Train, leaving the swings, the dodgems and the rifle ranges to the overexcited youths. Jeannie helped Big Michael close up shop, then turn off and purge the compressor. The doleful notes from the pipe organ stopped at last.

“Thanks,” she said, trying to keep her eyes open.

“Get off home now,” said Big Michael, handing her the cash box with the evening’s takings. “And tell your Gran everything went fine, but for her sake, I do hope she feels better soon.”

“Will do,” said the girl, walking backwards. “‘Night, Big Michael.”

She span round and darted between the tents back to the caravan. Big Michael walked back to his booth.

As he approached, he saw that the crowds had also deserted his stand. Throwing wooden balls into holes and buckets to win cuddly stuffed animals wasn’t the sort of thrill the late night crowds of teens came looking for. Nonetheless he smiled as he saw Malcolm hadn’t given up, and was still calling out to the passers-by.

“Time to call it a night, Malky,” he said. The boy nodded. “I’ll lock up. Don’t you worry.” He reached into the cash box and took out a couple of banknotes. “For your troubles, kid.”

“It was no trouble, Big Michael. Honest.”

“Malcolm. You listen. If someone offers you good money for honest work, you don’t protest, you take it. You can always get yourself something for your Gran, or your sister.”

He folded the notes into the boy’s hand.

“Right, Big Michael. I mean, thanks.”

He made to cuff the boy on the ear, lifting a big hand in slow motion. The boy turned away, flashed a grin back at Big Michael and ran off down the alley.

Inside the stand, Big Michael locked down the front and had a last look round before picking up the cash box and switching off the lights. Something nagged at him, some little detail that he couldn’t put his finger on. He shrugged it off, shut and padlocked the door, then walked the alleys back to his caravan.

He had the impression that he had hardly slept when the sound of banging on his door woke him the next morning.

“Get out of it!” he called through the blankets. “Some of us are trying to get some sleep in here!”

“Police,” called a voice, adding in a undertone that could still be clearly heard through the door: “Personally, some of us would much rather be catching up on some shut eye, too.”

He pulled the blankets round him, hanging onto the warmth of the night.

“Door’s open!”

He closed his eyes against the light as the door opened and a uniformed Policeman put a booted foot onto the step.

“Just going door to door,” said the Policeman. “Asking questions. Mind if I come in?”

“Don’t mind me,” said Big Michael, lifting a blind and squinting at the outside. “Ugh! What time is it?”

“A little after seven. You usually sleep late, do you?”

Big Michael grunted and rubbed his eyes.

“Switch that on, will you? You’re nearest.” He pointed to the kettle on the draining board of the minute fitted kitchen. “Mugs are clean and the bags are in the pot. Make one for yourself if you want.”

The Policeman pressed the button on the kettle.

“So, what’s this about?” asked Big Michael.

“Just routine. There was a bit of trouble last night. So we’re trying to see if anyone saw anything out of the ordinary, like.”

“What sort of trouble?”

Big Michael looked the Policeman up and down, getting a good look.

“Just a minute, Sir,” said the Policeman. “Can I ask you your name first?”

He was now holding a notebook.

“Big Michael”, said Big Michael.

“That’d be… Michael Alistair McMunn?”

“I dare say… And how come you’ve already got my name there?”

The Policeman sighed.

“We’re knocking on doors all over the place. Me and a colleague are doing the fairground, that’s all. I’ve collected a lot of names. But if I was the DI who sent us all off this morning, I’d say that as you’re travellers, it’s better to get it over with and well done and thorough like, and when you go off on your way, no-one can accuse us of not doing a good job. For your sakes and ours…”

Big Michael nodded.

“Seems fair to me. I take it we’re not talking about stolen cars or a lost cat..?”

The Policeman gave half smile.

“Not really…”

He pulled out a colour photocopy. You could see the girl had been hastily cropped out of a larger picture, then blown up to fill the space. The photocopy had increased the contrast, sent the skin tones bright pink and white, darkened the mass of shoulder-length hair. She was frozen with a remark just about to cross her lips.

“Ring any bells?” asked the Policeman.

Big Michael shook his head.

“You were on the Ghost Train last night…” The Policeman had consulted his notebook.

Big Michael nodded.

“That’s mostly families at the start of the evening and couples later on,” he volunteered. “Was she with a bloke?”

“Not that we know of for the moment…”

“Missing..? Or worse?”

The Policeman looked at Big Michael as he spoke.

“Worse. Much worse. You’ll hear the rumours soon enough so I might as well tell you. Came over with a couple of girlfriends, spent the evening here at the fair. Drove them home. Someone found her very early this morning. Cold dead. Still in her car.”

The kettle switched itself off in a small cloud of steam.

Big Michael shook his head.

The thing that had bothered him last night came back, nagging, to his memory.

Edward.

Edward hadn’t been at his place at the top of the pile.

“If anything comes back…” said the Policeman and he set a flyer down on the small draining board. “Do call…”

“Yeah,” said Big Michael. He looked into the distance and didn’t like what he saw there. “Yeah.”

The Policeman looked at him before pocketing the notebook and leaving, shutting the door against the morning light.

Big Michael sat on the bed thinking. Then he pulled on a pair of jeans, slipped into the t-shirt and sweatshirt he’d been wearing yesterday and pulled on socks and shoes. Grabbing a donkey jacket he stepped outside. He looked around, then walked briskly over to the caravan the children shared with their Gran.

He rapped on the door and didn’t wait for a reply.

Malcolm looked up from spooning cereals into his mouth. On a shelf next to him a small television flickered soundlessly.

“Big Michael,” said the boy.

“Malky,” said the other without even stopping to say hello. “Last night, did you let someone take the bear. Edward.”

The boy swallowed.

“I tried, Big Michael. Honest.”

“Just answer me, Malky. Did you?”

He nodded quickly and lowered his eyes.

“Like I told the cop, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. And her friends and some blokes all piled on to. I couldn’t do nothing…”

“Malky?”

“Yes. She took it.” He hung his head. “But it’s just a bear. Got nothing to do with what happened to her..?”

Big Michael turned and left. He felt in his pockets for the keys as he walked over to his stand. Once inside he switched on the lights.

Edward stared down at him from his place on the top of the pile.

It was happening again.

Big Michael slammed the door and locked it. Then he remembered the lights.

He unlocked the door. The bear hadn’t moved.

He switched off the lights, padlocked the door and pulled on it to check it was firm and solid, then walked back to his caravan with the weight of realisation on his shoulders.

He sat and buried his head in his hands.

He had to get rid of it before anyone else saw it. And more importantly, saw him with it.

He got up and rummaged through cupboards until he found a sports bag that appeared about the right size. Would he need anything else? A hammer perhaps…

A brisk rap on the caravan door startled him.

“Mr McMunn? Constable Winters… Hello?”

Big Michael pushed the door open, the uniformed Policeman at the bottom of the steps moved back.

“Yeah?”

“Just a question… The funfair was in Weston-super-Mare two years ago—” He looked at his notebook. “—in September.”

“Yeah.”

“Thought so… The station called in. Amazing what they do with computers, isn’t it?”

Big Michael scowled down at the man.

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“With you?” The Policeman stared. “Nothing. I just wanted confirmation—”

“Look. They came and saw us, same as you did. Asked a lot of questions and told us nothing at all. So don’t you come round all sneaky like and try and pin a bunch of lies on us.”

The Policeman held his hands up.

“This is a murder investigation, Mr.. Mr McMunn. We ask a lot of questions. That’s how it goes. And when the station radios up and tells me to go and ask some more, I do it. That’s my job, pal.”

“I’m not your pal. I’m just trying to make a living. And I get sick and tired of people making accusations just because we’re travellers.”

Big Michael felt he was going to explode. Break into a thousand pieces. Scatter all over the field. Blast everything away. Starting with this yapping little police dog.

“Goodbye!”

He slammed the door shut and slipped back onto his chair. He realised he was still holding the sports bag.

He looked over at the door, willing it to open. Willing the Policeman to knock and enter and give him an excuse to hit out, to let off stream.

There was no knock. The door didn’t open.

He breathed heavily until he felt more calm, then gripping the bag he set off for the stand.

With each step he took, he imagined opening the door, switching on the lights and seeing nothing… Or at least, no Edward crowning the pile of soft toys. He’d imagined everything. It wasn’t all happening again.

Outside he fiddled with the padlock, pushed open the door and reached for the light switches.

In the garish light, the bear looked down at him.

“You’ve got to understand,” started Big Michael. “I never wanted it to come to this.”

He pushed the bear into the bag and zipped it shut.

It weighed nothing. He hadn’t expected that. He had expected to feel something.

“Now I’ve got to get us out of this mess,” he said, and left.

The fairground was mostly sleeping: stands still shuttered, swings and trains and cars all chained up. A few school kids walked the alleys like strays.

Big Michael thought furiously as he walked: should he throw the bag in a river? Leave it in a dustbin? Perhaps he should bury it somewhere? Burn it?

It was too dangerous to just leave the bear somewhere. Even in the most improbably place someone could find it.

No, he had to destroy it.

He looked up. At the end of the alley, the Policeman was standing. Standing and looking straight at Big Michael.

He looked round. He was at the other end of the fair, far from both his caravan and his stand. What had he been thinking of? He felt the Policeman’s eyes looking through him. Looking through him and seeing his thoughts. Seeing the bag he was carrying.

He turned into an alley and hurried away.

The Police. They were after him. But what could he do?

Jeannie was standing outside his caravan. She lifted her head at his approach and flapped her hanging sleeves against her hips. A puppy dog, he thought. A little bird.

“Not now, Jeannie,” he said.

She looked up from under her fringe.

“It’s Edward, isn’t it,” she mumbled. “Malky told me.”

“Malky should keep his face shut.” He opened the door and climbed inside. “Well don’t just hang about out there,” he called out over his shoulders. “Get inside.”

She sat down on the side, her knees pressing her hands together. She watched him put the bag down carefully on the draining board.

He collapsed into a chair and took his head into his hands.

“What can I do to help, Big Michael?”

He lifted his head. Blue eyes stared straight at him.

“Stay out of it.”

“But why does—?”

“Not a word. You already know too much for your own good.” He sighed. “S’not really Malky’s fault either. He’s a good lad at heart. He wasn’t to know. Not really. It’s all my fault. Can’t go blaming anyone else.”

“What’cha gonna do, Big Michael?”

“What can I do? Get rid of it. Stop it. Got no choice, have I?”

“But how?”

“That’s for me to decide.” He shook himself, like waking. “Anyways what I am doing blabbering to you about it? Get out Jeannie. Get out while you still can.”

“Where did Edward come from?”

“What? Search me. He’s always been there, hasn’t he? What you looking at me like that for? Like I should know. Came with the stand, didn’t he. That’s all I know. Now get away Jeannie, leave me alone.”

This time the girl did get up and did open the door. She looked back at Big Michael, his head in his hands, and closed the door on the caravan, on the man sitting in the chair, on the bag on the counter.

Eventually, Big Michael pulled himself up, took the bag and walked to one of the upended oil cans where they sometimes roasted sweet chestnuts. He started the fire with paper and tinder, stuffed in the bag and piled coke and wood in. The nylon and plastic smelt awful as it burnt, spitting blue flames and greasy, oily smoke. All the while he expected the Policeman to appear and ask him what he was doing.

He watched as the fire consumed everything, then poked at the coals and cinders with a stick to make sure that nothing recognisable remained.

Only then did he breathe more lightly.

Back at the caravan, he fancied he could smell the smoke and burning plastic, as if he’d brought it with him on his clothes.

He opened his stand that afternoon as if he was in a trance, and the takings showed it. Instead of calling out to the punters, challenging them, alternately mocking and encouraging them, instead of calling out to the lads to prove their worth to the girls and win a cuddly animal, instead of hailing champions and pouring scorn on losers, he just sat on his stool and looked at nothing, looked at anything so that he didn’t have to turn and see the empty space at the top of the pile where Edward had once sat proud and king of the stand.

On his way back to the caravan afterwards he noticed the flyers taped up all around. The overexposed image of a smiling girl. The words ‘Have you seen this woman?’. And a telephone number.

He closed the door and sat down, waiting for the evening and the dark. He fancied his clothes still smelt of burning, of ashes and plastic catching the flames and crinkling inward and outward into smoke.

At last he could no longer see and still he sat until the habit of a lifetime forced him to prepare for his evening on the stand.

He reached over and switched on the light.

Edward was sitting opposite, on the kitchen bench, his white fur singed and blackened, showing bald tissue in places. But staring at him with two glass eyes.

Big Michael didn’t move.

He still hadn’t moved when Jeannie and Malcolm came by, worried that he wasn’t manning his stand.

They knocked on the door but got no answer. Seeing the light they climbed the step and entered.

He was sitting in the chair, his eyes wide open but seeing nothing. And strangest of all, his clothes were smothered in cinders and scorch marks.

Jeannie and Malky ran for their Gran as the wheezing music played from the Ghost Train’s creaky pipe organ, as the sounds of screams and cheers and loud music covered the night. And somewhere Edward Bear sat waiting for someone new to find him and take him home.

THE END

Please note that I have lots of teddy bears, and love them all dearly. Although, strangely enough, none are named ‘Edward’ or ‘Teddy’…

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“Hold the light higher!” barked Uncle Lupo. “And stop shaking.” Uncle Jakko shuffled closer but still averted his eyes from the bloody mess that had been Uncle Lucky’s legs.

Uncle Lupo bent over, his knife caught the sallow light from the evil-smelling lamp. He bunched up the tissue and cut into Uncle Lucky’s trousers at the thighs, then sliced through them, lifting the dirty, blood-clotted cloth away from his what had been his shins.

Even at this distance I could see white shards of bone sticking out from the blackness.

“The bastards,” murmured Uncle Lupo. “There’s no way we can set the mess straight here.” He sighed. Black lines painted themselves to a frown on his forehead and scribbled anger round his mouth. He turned to face the others present in the dark, dirty basement: Uncle Jakko, Uncle Pipo, and me.

“I’ll need something to tie up a splint and staunch the bleeding. You can rip up some clothes if there’s nothing else. And I’ll need wood. Small planks, beams. Pull the place apart if you need to,” he said.

Uncle Lucky’s sack was lying just inside the door. Uncle Pipo had left it there when he’d staggered in, carrying the other. Now, he turned to examine the contents, and bumped into Uncle Jakko, who had had the same idea. Uncle Jakko honked and then fell and bounced on the dusty floor.

“There’s a time and a place,” started Uncle Lupo through clenched teeth.

“Sorry Boss,” said Uncle Jakko, shrugging. He jumped up and brushed himself down with exaggerated gestures. Uncle Pipo picked up the sack.

Before he could do anything with it, there was a noise like a clap of thunder and the ramshackle door swung open. Fear glued me to the spot and stopped me from jumping backwards and falling on my bottom like Uncle Jakko and Uncle Pipo. Even Uncle Lupo had shifted away, and poor Uncle Lucky held his arms up high, shaking his hands and miming surprise.

The figure of a very large man oozed through the door frame. He was, in parts, wider than the door with a great head encircled with curly mutton chops that reached to below his sagging mouth, set in a face ravaged and pitted by a youthful bout of some pox. He wore a coat that fell to below his knees and appeared to have been patched together from the badly-tanned hides of a multitude of small furry creatures, some of which still seemed to possess here an eye, there a ear or a tooth.

He swung a large club round — obviously the instrument he had used to open the door — then brought it to a halt standing on the palm of a hand that in itself appeared larger than Uncle Lupo’s head. And he had the biggest head of us all. The man twitched and the club swung round, swooshing through the air until it hit the floor and the house above shook and trembled. Dust, cobwebs and the droppings of the various animals that crawled around in the dilapidated floorboards above showered down around us.

He slipped a hand into a trouser pocket, pulling back his coat to reveal a chest and belly as massive as a cartload of barrels. And as the dust settled, two razordogs — one on each side of him — poked their vicious dribbling heads from beneath the uneven hems of his coat and squinted at us with their mean little yellow eyes.

“Gentlemen,” said a voice like steam train colliding with an omnibus. “I have come to collect the rent.”

Uncle Jakko and Uncle Pipo didn’t miss a beat. They jumped up, bounced off each other’s stomach, fell down and Uncle Pipo rolled right over and collapsed into a pile of rubble in the corner.

“Ah!” said the stranger, a solitary eye cocked to follow their acrobatics before settling his gaze on Uncle Lupo. “Clowns! Don’t you just love ‘em.”

The knife in Uncle Lupo’s hand melted into the sahdows.

“What rent?” he snapped. “The place is abandoned.”

“I agree that the neighbourhood is not what it was.” he said, with a air of concern in his voice. “Hard times, for us all, Sir…” The dogs panted at his feet, snuffling the air, the light from behind glistening on their fins and spikes. “Consider it a contribution to the upkeep of law and order in the district.”

“What law and order?” Uncle Lupo shouted, trembling, his face now scarred with deep vertical lines against the white mask. “My own brother. They set on him. Like animals.” He pointed to Uncle Lucky laying on the sacking by the rough brick wall. Uncle Lucky lifted an imaginary hat and made an elaborate play of saluting with it before collapsing back on the makeshift bed, a grimace of pain painted on his features. “They smashed his legs! Is that your law and order? Don’t make me laugh.”

The stranger pulled himself up. The squalid little room shrank as he blocked out the pale light coming in from outside the door.

“Think yourself lucky they don’t tear him apart,” he said calmly, his voice a rumble. “Not much else to do with a Clown these days.”

“Is that a threat?” snorted Uncle Lupo, lifting his hands.

The stranger’s face split into a smile. Great mismatched pegs of teeth poked from behind his fat lips.

“Think of it as neighbourly advice.”

One of the razordogs barked, showing rows of untidy needle-sharp teeth.

“Quiet Snapper!” called the stranger, and he pulled on a rope that had remained unseen until now, hidden in the depths of his free hand. The one now resting on the oversized bludgeon. “He’s getting impatient you see,” he added in an apparently friendly voice. “Likes his action does old Snapper.”

We are stared back.

Uncle Lupo’s hands were extended, each finger terminating in a different sharp object: knives, nails, scissors, a claw hammer. There was even a bright red rose on a thorny stem.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, let us stay calm,” said the giant. “Do you really think I’d damage the goods? If it comes to fisticuffs and I have to flatten you all, who’ll pay the rent then? Let’s be reasonable. It’s obvious, you’ve only just arrived. You’re still finding your feet, I imagine.” He coughed. “At the end of your legs. Yes, I know that one… Clowns like to have their little jokes don’t they…”

He flashed his sinister grin quickly, as if worried his teeth would burst out and and escape if he exposed them for longer.

“Ta-da-da, boom boom!” came the sound as Uncle Pipo tapped out a drum roll on a packing case.

“Don’t push your luck,” said the stranger as he scowled at Uncle Pipo.

Uncle Lupo closed his hands. The weapons and the flower had disappeared again.

“If it’s all right by you, I have a wounded brother to care for.” He turned back to Uncle Lucky in the corner.

“Make yourselves at home,” said the stranger, nodding gravely. “There’s just one minor point to clear up.”

“What?” snapped Uncle Lupo.

“I’m taking him with me.” The massive hand steadying the massive club extended a finger. The finger pointed at me. “Just to be sure you don’t go forgetting me.”

Uncle Jakko and Uncle Pipo looked at Uncle Lucky, their faces creased in worry. Uncle Pipo’s knees started rattling and shaking. He reached down and stilled them, but the noise continued. Uncle Jakko pulled a metronome out of his pocket. Uncle Pipo reached up and smashed it to pieces. The noise stopped. They both turned and looked back at Uncle Lupo.

“One less mouth to feed…” suggested the stranger with his lopsided smile.

“Uncle Lupo looked at me, at Uncle Lucky laying on the mess by the wall, and back at me.

“Seems reasonable,” he said.

The stranger pulled his hand from his pocket and snapped his fingers. A tall weasel of a man squeezed out from behind him in the doorway, folded me up, and rolled me into a sack.

~

Light appeared at the mouth of the sack and I was rolled out onto a threadbare carpet where I lay and gazed up at the ceiling. It was black with dirt and dust and soot. And probably other things as well. Underneath it was crisscrossed with heavy rafters, some of which had a large, vicious-looking hook screwed into them, and with what must have once been sculpted busts holding the ends where they met with the high walls. The ceiling was dotted with gaping ragged holes, some large enough that someone could fall right through. Or perhaps they already had. Someone else, it seemed, had spent quite a bit of time taking potshots at the heads, further puncturing the ceiling in the process. But what was most worrying were the great claw marks scratched along the beams and disfiguring the faces. What creature could exist that might be both large and strong enough to gouge such marks, yet be tall enough to reach up, or nimble enough to climb up and hang there.

A large face, pocked like the moon but framed with a formidable pair of bristling ginger whiskers eclipsed my view. My host. My kidnapper.

“It’s still alive,” he said, crooked teeth interrupting a crooked smile. “That’s fortunate. I always wanted a Clown of my own.”

I sat up and twisted to see the giant standing over me. My eyes darted round the great room, anxiously looking for the razordogs but, luckily, they were nowhere to be seen. Small groups of sallow, haggard men stood warming themselves at braseros in the corners as cold seeped in through the broken windows.

The giant kicked at me, narrowly missing my back.

“I’m Gripmole, Mister Gripmole. My friends—” A hand as big as my head swung round designating the scattered groups hugging up to the fires. “—My friends call me Grip. You can call me Roger.”

“R-r-roger?” I stammered.

“No! Call me Gripmole…” Again the grin like a broken vase split his face. “Just my little joke. I’d have thought a Clown would’ve appreciated a joke, no?” He turned to his cronies. “What do you say? Shall we ask the Clown to make us laugh?”

He aimed another kick at my back. I ducked to the side.

There were murmurs and couple of cartarrhy laughs. I heard a voice mutter: “Break ‘is legs an’ get on with it”

I squirmed.

“I.. I don’t know how..” I managed to say in a whisper.

“What’s that?” roared the colossus.

“I don’t know any tricks, Sir. I’m too young for a Clown.”

“What?” he thundered, his arms taking in the room as he span around waving everyone closer. “I was done. I was robbed.” And then, leaning over me. “You mean, they fobbed me of with a puppy, not a real Clown?”

He stood up.

“Put him in a cage. We’ll see about him later.”

They dragged an ugly iron cage into the room folded me up, and pushed me inside. The two halves were folded up over me. There was no room to move. Folded as I was, my head and limbs all pressed up against the bars.

Then I discovered the purpose of the ropes in the ceiling.

They swung a rope around until it caught on a hook, attached the cage, sealing me inside, and pulled me up until I was suspended just under the grimy ceiling, staring at the deep slashes and wondering what sort of creature could possibly have made them. Had I been a fully grown up Clown, tears would have painted themselves across my face by now.

“What about something to eat?” I called. “You promised Uncle Lupo…”

Gripmole turned and looked up at the cage.

“You! You hold your tongue. Or it’s you the next meal.”

The cage swung gently on its hook, different parts digging into my back, my arms, and my knees as it changed position.

I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable to just happen.

We were freed from the Sparrowgrass farms although we had no merit in the matter. The Masters just upped and fled and the plants were all dead. Brittle, spindly and yellow, they were covered in the same growth that was stifling vegetation everywhere.

While it had lasted it had been good work. And above all, out of the way. Even there, Clowns weren’t much appreciated.

The five of us had crept into town through the tunnels and underground passageways. There had been guides offering to show the way, but if we had had enough to pay them, we wouldn’t have needed to go there in the first place. They had shrugged and left us alone. There were plenty of others wanting to get in. But they hadn’t left before telling us about the traps and dead-ends, about the razordogs roaming wild, about the rats as big as pigs who built nests in the sewers and span webs to catch the unwary traveller. Needless to say, we met none of these, just a few rats the size of cats, but a couple of them fed us quite nicely on more than one occasion. And while we did see curious shapes hanging in side tunnels, glowing with a curious blue-green light, demented cat’s cradles stretching from wall to wall, and slightly sticky to the touch, we never knew who or what made them. It could even have been a trick set up by the guides, we decided.

Once in town, things were worse than we had supposed, but also better. Yes, there was food. Cans and sacks and packs ransacked from the shelves and store-rooms of devastated stores. But we had no means to pay for it, and not only was there no work available, but no-one wanted to have anything to do with a Clown.

Clowns were secretive. They stayed among themselves. They hoarded. They got all the cushy jobs. Clowns just weren’t funny.

They shouted at us, spat at us, threw bricks and stones and rubble. They ran us out of every place we found. So we kept to the shadows, only going out at night, and being sure to get back before dawn.

And then we started to hear the rumours: Clowns have diamonds hidden in their legs…

“Psst!” said a voice in my ear.

“I don’t believe it. He’s fallen asleep,” whispered a voice by my other ear.

“Either that or he’s already dead,” said a voice in front of me.

I opened my eyes.

I was still hanging in the cage but the great room below was dark and cold and empty. Or as far as I could make out in the shadows.

I shifted, trying to see where the voices were coming from. But as I moved, not only did the cage dig into my aching limbs, but the slightest movement sent it rocking.

Pain shot up my back.

“Calm down,” said the first voice. “You’ll only make things worse.”

“He can’t hear you,” said the voice from in front. “He’s probably delirious by now.”

“Where are you?” I asked. “I can’t see you. And who are you?”

“Bollo,” said the first voice.

“Rollo,” said the second.

“And Lupin,” said the third, drearily. “We’re up here, but you probably can’t see us. Wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve gone blind.”

I looked up and saw a round face with a shock of hair on the chin. Except, as the face was upside down and poking through one of the holes in the ceiling, what I was seeing was the hair on the top of the head. Except, as I was looking at a Clown, he’d drawn a great slash of a mouth and a small button nose on his forehead, as if he had two faces. In a typical Clown touch, the painted lips moved as he spoke. I say ‘he’ as a matter of habit. It’s sometimes hard to tell with Clowns. Even harder if they’re hanging upside down from the ceiling.

“You’re Clowns,” I said.

“As I thought,” said the double face. “He’s been shocked into imbecility.”

“Stop wasting time,” said the first voice, the one who’d introduced himself as Bollo. “Give him something to drink.”

Water splashed into my face. I jerked back and regretted it as the cage set to swinging, and the pain washed over me.

“Lupin!” said Bollo.

“He’s lost all muscle control,” protested the Clown “Probably hasn’t much time left…”

“Give. Him. The. Water. Lupin.”

A hand stretched down, bearing a cup with a straw in it. It approached the bars of the cage and the Clown manoeuvred the straw towards my mouth. For a moment I thought it was going to stay there, just out of reach, but it lunged forwards and I clamped down on it with my teeth.

“Ouch!” said Lupin. “Be careful.”

I drank. I hadn’t realised how thirsty I was.

“That hurt,” said Lupin, speaking to the others. “He’s probably some sort of vicious sadist. Out to trap us. If he hasn’t got some disease or other…”

“Lupin!” said Bollo.

“Put a sock on it,” said Rollo.

Lupin sniffed and withdrew the cup. It changed back into his hand.

“Now he’ll probably want to pee…”

Effectively, now he mentioned it, I could feel the pressure in my bladder building up.

“Let him slip out then. Not too difficult for a real Clown,” proposed Lupin. “Which he probably isn’t…”

Had I been able to move, the bars were perhaps wide enough to slip an arm through, but it wasn’t possible to open the cage. The two sides folded together and were held firmly in place by the rope running through the two loop set at the top. The only way out for me, was to lower it to the floor below.

One of them — Bollo or Lollo, I don’t know which — climbed down onto the top of the cage. I was sure I could hear the hook creaking in the woodwork above. From there, he shimmied down the rope.

“The razordogs’ll probably get him,” said Lupin. “Just mark my words. He lets them roam free at nights…”

I looked down at the shadows, but it was hard to see anything. The cage shook and swayed as I was lowered to the floor. As the two halves folded away, I fell out, unable to move.

Lollo or Bollo kicked me.

“C’mon, we haven’t got all night, you know.”

Laying on the floor in the dark, I thought I was listening to Gripmole again.

“Can’t. Can’t move.”

There were rustling echoing round the great room and something was falling from the ceiling.

“Picked a right one this time. Probably not a real Clown even.”

That would be Lupin speaking. I looked up at the ceiling. In the gloom I saw Lupin, his hand extended into a great claw scratching at the ceiling and the rafters where the cage had been.

“What’s going on?” I wanted to know.

“Ssh!” said Bollo or Lollo. “It distracts them. About how you got out of the cage.”

“And there aren’t any dogs?”

“Sure there are. But not here. What do you take us for?”

I unfolded an arm, then a leg. Then the others. I had pins and needles everywhere. My back hurt. And I needed a pee.

Next to me the cage clanged shut and shot into the air.

“What..?”

“Come along,” said Lollo or Bollo. “We haven’t finished.”

The rope holding the cage was tied to some spikes sticking out of the splintered panelling on the wall. One of the Clowns — now I could make them out in the half-light, I saw they were just stubbly, and not much bigger than me — caught hold of the rope and started pulling himself up.

“Now you,” said the remaining one, Bollo or Lollo.

I caught hold and pulled myself up, hand over hand over painful hand. As I neared the top, Lupin leaned over and slashed at the cage with his claws, cutting deep gashes into the metal and causing a sharp shriek to echo round the room below. His face had a twisted smile, stretching up to beyond his ears.

I pulled myself through the jagged hole in the rafters and floorboards, up into the room above.

The same grey half-light soaked into the place through broken windows. This room must be the same size as the one below but less ornate, and possessing a lower, less-imposing ceiling. Holes, big and small, pocked the floor.

“Stick your tongue back in or you’ll trip over it,” said Lupin, pulling himself out of one of the holes.

“Hurry up!” chided the other one, Lollo or Bollo. He was picking his way round the holes towards the great double doors at the end of the room.

“Follow Lollo. Walk in her footsteps,” said the Clown emerging from the hole behind me. “Hurry. Someone could be along at any moment.”

“They’re probably already waiting for us in the corridor,” Lupin sighed.

They weren’t.

We quickly crept along ravished corridors and dilapidated staircases until we came to a small room containing cupboards from floor to ceiling, and occupied for the most part by a enormous bed.

Bollo locked the door behind us, but not before Lollo had lit a storm lantern that smoked and smelled and gave off a greasy yellow light.

“Food,” said Bollo, scrambling up the shelves of one of the cupboards. “We can talk easier on a full stomach.”

He threw tins down onto the bed. I saw beans and custard and stewed peas.

Lollo opened a hand with a tin-opener hanging off the palm, and set to hacking the tins open.

“We’ve already eaten,” said Bollo, joining us on the bed. “Help yourself.”

I scooped the contents into my mouth, dibbling custard and tomato sauce and brine. Ambrosia had never tasted as good. As I drained the last of the tomato sauce into my mouth, I burped in contentedness and satisfaction.

“Where are you from?” asked Bollo. “And how long have you been here?”

I waved my hands.

“Slowly, slowly.” I burped again. Perhaps this had been too much eat. And too rich on an empty stomach. “We worked on a Sparrowgrass farm at Morley Pitt. And we got here about three weeks ago. And you?”

“Later,” said Lollo. “How many are you? Just the five?”

“Ye— Hold on! How do you know how many we are? There was only that horrible man, Gripmole…”

Lollo bounced on the bed, then jumped to the floor where she grabbed Lupin.

“Come on, let’s how him,” she called.

Bollo climbed up on their shoulders.

And they were Gripmole.

Bollo was the head and the arms. Lollo and Lupin a leg each. Once they wore great baggy trousers and the long coat, it would be impossible to know they were really three Clowns.

“But..?” I started.

“Best place to hide,” said Bollo, with Gripmole’s voice.

“Out in the open,” said Lollo.

“Probably won’t last for much longer,” added Lupin.

I stared at the giant.

“But..?”

“Find the Clowns. Then get them away from here,” said Bollo.

“And because everyone’s scared of Mister Gripmole, we get our hands on hard-to-find things like money and food,” said Lollo.

“But the dogs..?”

“Tied up down below,” said Bollo.

“They’re lovely really. Amazing what a few accessories can do…” said Lollo.

“But there’s still one thing that both hard and easy to get…” said Gripmole’s voice. “Meat. Good proteins.”

I had difficulty keeping my eyes open.

Bollo jumped onto the bed while Lupin sidled up to me. Lollo stood still. Then Lupin flashed his hand at me. I half expected to see the claws from earlier. Instead I saw syringes. Each containing a dull yellow liquid.

“We inject straight into the cans, before they’re opened,” said Bollo. “Practically undetectable.”

“We do have to let you hang for a few days though,” said Lollo. “We don’t want to start poisoning ourselves, do we?”

I blacked out.

It’s easy to see why Clowns have been singled out. We’re born with the distinctive markings on our faces, but we can’t really control them until we come of age. And by that time, it’s too late. You’ve already been working for ten years or so, with other Clowns. You know your place. And believe it or not, Clown used to be prized workers. Strong, supple, practically indestructible, and our specific disposition meant that we were our own workshops. Fingers, hands, and sometimes whole arms, spontaneously transform to just the right tool for the job. Oh, there are sometimes mishaps, generally flowers and water pistols — anything for a laugh, we are Clowns after all — but, except in the case of Uncle Lucky, these are rare. So while there was work, we worked.

As things got worse and jobs dried up, this created no end of resentment — How come they’ve got work and I haven’t? Can’t even afford to support my own family… — Never mind that most of the things we did, nobody wanted to do anyway: Caring for sparrowgrass for 16 hours a day, for example, was tiring, dirty, backbreaking work. We were highly visible and an easy target.

And there was the leg-breaking, which didn’t help.

Uncle Lupo said it came from a time before. To say of a Clown, he had gold, or jewels, in his legs was just a way of describing our value and our worth. Unfortunately, as times got worse, people forgot the origins of the expression and started attacking us, expecting a hidden treasure to reveal itself. But they didn’t stop when the saw we were just flesh and blood and bone and tendons just like them. No, they supposed it was just well hidden and carried on, or looked around for another Clown and attacked him too…

But this was the first I knew of Clowns attacking other Clowns.

I woke up hanging by my feet in a cold dark place. There was a strong smell, like a metal, like copper or iron. My hands were tied behind my back, a gag or something stuffed into my mouth. I tried to look around but it was completely dark. I only succeeded in rocking myself gently from side to side.

Either I fell asleep or I blacked out again.

This time I woke to see Lupin’s face just in front of mine. A pale wedge of light lit the room. he darted back, lifting a finger to his lips. Except it wasn’t a finger. It was a long cold blade.

As my eyes darted around the room, looking for a way out, or someone to help me, I saw in the dim light, small bodies hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Under each body was a large basin full of something dark.

Lupin followed my stare.

“Black pudding,” he said, and smiled. “Waste not…”

And the smile froze as something pierced his head, straight through his forehead in a flash.

He fell backwards, upsetting a basin and splashing the contents over himself and the floor. His arms and legs jerked spasmodically, like an overturned beetle.

I looked around to try and see what had attacked him. Whatever it was must have been just behind me. I pulled and twisted myself, swinging and trying to turn. To my surprise, I saw my hands, except they were long and thin, as if each finger was made of sparrowgrass.

I looked again and the hands I held up in front of my face were normal.

I pulled at the gag and felt hot sticky blood — Lupin’s — on my face.

Still I twisted and turned until I realised that my head was now nearly touching the ground below. My legs were growing longer and thinner and…

Placing my hands on the floor to steady myself, I eased a foot from the knotted rope and, bending in two, placed it on the floor. I did the same with the other and pulled myself upright. My body automatically assumed its original shape and size.

Of course, I was a Clown. Only now, fully and truly a Clown.

I lifted my hand. Each finger transformed into a different cutting implement: knife, saw, secateurs, corkscrew…

I snapped them shut and lifted Lupin’s body up and left it hanging from the ceiling, swaying softly, while I set off to look for Bollo and Lollo.

So why am I telling you this? To pass the time, I suppose. It’s rare to get company nowadays. So don’t worry. You won’t feel anything. It’s all over real quick… And when Gripmole gives his word, he keeps it. But you’ve got to understand, it’s a Clown eat Clown world out there now.

THE END

I hope you liked it, I had fun writing this one.

Please join the Reader Drive. Send this story to your friends, share it. Spread the word. Thanks in advance.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

The boy waits in a gap in the foliage, leaning back against the rough wall as if it is the act of his waiting that has forged this little retreat where he can watch, yet not be seen.

His dark clothes and hair melt into the shadows, leaving only his face framed by side burns that descend to below his ears. It is a slightly too long face with a thin mouth and thin eyebrows. When he looks out, his yellow eyes pierce the night, constantly alert, moving, following scenes and creatures unseen and unbeknown to others.

He waits.

He waits like ivy waits with the patience and knowledge that waiting makes for strength and solidity. He waits like a tree waits, measuring time in decades and centuries, skimming over the meaningless buzz of everyday events. He waits like stone waits, unmoved and unmoving, secure in the knowledge he was there before and will be there after.

It is nearly time.

He extends a pale hand to the lamppost opposite. The electrical circuit above flickers and wavers, a brief candle caught in a draught. His cupped hand starts to glow as a pale flame forms there, growing stronger until he is holding a burning illuminated bowl and the street light is as dark and dead-headed as a spent matchstick. For a second the light is too bright to look at and then it is gone and the road is darker still except for two spark where his eyes should be. Or perhaps it is the retinal burn of the after image playing tricks with a watcher’s eyes.

For there is a watcher here.

For all events there is a watcher.

Is it important who the watcher is? Not usually. In the same manner that for all actions there must be a reaction, for all events there needs to be a watcher. And in the absence of the watcher there is nothing.

The watcher can be an insect. Spiders, for example, make for good watchers. Small nibblers like rats and mice and voles. Birds and bats and cats. For watcher is a role, a particular place and a position in the scheme of things, in the alignment of stars and planets, of trees and rocks, of drops of dew on a leaf or a web.

Yet in this case the watcher takes the form of a person.

She was watching before he arrived, before he walked from the dark and emerged into the Lane, before he slipped into the space between the trees. She watched him arrive. She watched him become one with the calm and the night, slowly sinking into some recess, some fold, some shadowy realm between the slow heartbeats of passing time.

She watched him wait.

She watched his patience as he waited.

She watched him nourish himself with the street lamp and knew then that he was the right one.

And now she was walking on the pavement, taking care as she set down each slippered foot not to step on the cracks and gaps between the flag stones. If you step on the cracks, the bears will eat you, chant the little children, before they giggle and scatter like ripples on a pond. But she knows better than that. She has seen those who have slipped and fallen through the cracks.

As she walks she fingers the stone in her pocket. A stone worn smooth with use. It is a fine stone, pierced through the middle where she can place her finger and wear it as a ring. Or hold it up to her eye, all the better to see that which doesn’t necessarily want to be seen.

He felt her tip-toeing approach, dancing along the pavement like a child playing hopscotch. He felt her energy glowing.

He was hungry, so hungry.

The paltry power he had gobbled up from the electric lamp was fading already. He was hungry. He needed to feed.

“I nearly missed you, hiding here,” she said. A sweet, sweet lie. “It’s so dark.”

He opened his arms.

“S’funny you should say that. A long time ago, this street was called ‘Dark Lane’—” He waved a hand towards the sombre tunnel under the trees, the houses hidden behind the curtain of velveteen dark. “But the residents, the people who lived here, didn’t like the name, felt it created a bad impression, and petitioned to have it changed.”

“And I imagined that there used to be park here. Or fields. Before the houses and gardens and garages and sheds.” Yet as she spoke the idea of houses and cars, of bicycles and bricks, or potted plants and swimming pools felt ridiculous, and fell away. She could only feel fields and wild flowers, their heads bowed for the night and waiting just beyond the rugged flint walls.”

She stood just beyond the reach of his outstretched arms, her feet squarely inside the rectangle of cracks around the paving stone.

He felt her warmth, so close now.

“But if you know so much,” she said. “Why is it so dark?”

For dark it was. The dotted lamps provided no light, just serving to pin the road into place as it disappeared into the night and the shadows.

He knew, but he could not tell her. He could not tell her that the separation between their two worlds was so thin here that with a skip and a hop you could find yourself on the other side. He knew but he could not tell her, as his hunger burned now, blinding him to all else.

“Come,” he said.

Still she stood, tantalising, just out of reach.

He must eat very soon or he would not even have the strength to cross back to that dark and desolate place he called home.

He moved to take a step forwards, and in that instant he was lost. Anticipating the moment, she lowered her eyes, all the better to see his shoe land squarely on the cracked pavement. He felt more than he saw the change in her, and froze inside. But the body he inhabited had its own will and reflexes. It had taken possession of the movement, and the foot descended inexorably as time stretched and the abyss opened and swallowed him like the ocean absorbs a drop of rain.

She watched him fall into the crack where others of his kind awaited him, as well as the unknown denizens of those depths.

She looked up. She looked up at the wall opposite, its grey stones laid out in regular lines. At the garden behind, lined with fragrant bushes where the night flies gathered. At the cottage, its roof sinking with age.

She looked up at the street lamps illuminating the undersides of trees with moths and insects gathering around. At the flickering blue light spilling from the windows of houses along the street. At the headlights of a passing car picking her out, for a moment, as bright as day.

She pulled the stone from her pocket and holding it up to a squinting eye surveyed Park Lane.

All was calm.

Pocketing the stone, she unfolded her wings and flew off with the other creatures of the night, to feast until daylight came.

THE END

A quick romp around a street that I used to know.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

Sure, Sunday morning they were back and there was life again, but it was only temporary. Come Sunday evening and everything closed again. It wasn’t until Monday morning when everybody arrived and the buzz, the echo started up again that the great hanger came to life and became, more that just a shop, a place to meet up and just hang around. A source of light and warmth and companionship. Open round the clock. Monday through Friday. Night and day.

Evie walked slowly along the magazine section, running the back of her hand along the glossy covers, touching top models and celebs, caressing photos of food and cars and phones. Later she would come back, flick through some of her favourites and see who was doing what, and who with. But for now she just wanted to walk the alleys, check that everything was in its place, in order, and as usual.

She passed Debs but she didn’t stop. Anyway, Debs was busy texting and limping along pushing her trolley, lost in her own little world.

The kid’s clothes alley was completely blocked, the staff were restocking the section with last minute back-to-school specials. She’d have to come back later and check out what had changed.

She walked up Nappies and Baby Food which wasn’t the most interesting alley, but that wasn’t the point, she said to herself, it was all a question of being thorough and orderly. Like now the ovens were heating up and the smell of warm bread and croissants was hanging like a nibble in the air, but she couldn’t just up and wander over there, could she? You had to respect the order. There was still Cereals and the Biscuits, Chocs, Frozen Food and then the Sodas and Soft Drinks to walk through first.

“Boo!” came a voice. And she jumped.

A small kid had just popped round the corner. They were always doing that. She pulled a face, sticking out her tongue at the small, chocolate-stained boy hoping for a giggle or a shared moment, but he ignored her and turned back to run after his Mum.

In Cereals, Jools and her Mum were arguing, their trolley blocking the alley. Jools looked over and flashed a smile that said it all — Mum’s can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

Evie shrugged her shoulders in acknowledgement and squeezed round the trolley. There were gaps on the shelves like missing teeth in a grin. That wouldn’t do. Someone was slacking off here. Everyone knew that the shelves should always be full. Well, as full as could be. She looked around expecting to see one of the large refill trolleys piled high with fresh new boxes waiting nearby, but there was no-one around. Still, it was early, perhaps someone had overslept, or called in sick. She made a mental note to check back later and walked along to Biscuits. It was funny how they had two alleys, with one labelled ‘Premium Cakes & Biscuits’. What made a biscuit so special it got promoted to ‘Premium’?

Carol and Nash came walking down Premium Biscuits. They were giggling. They were like that. They wandered around with no method or order. Just flitting from place to place. Somedays you could see them ten times, and others, never even know they were here.

“There’s a new boy—” started Carol.

“He’s hiding,” continued Nash.

“Over by the Glasses and Insurance.”

“Comes over all pink if you even just look at him.”

“Not bad really.”

“Just a bit lost.”

“So hands off.”

“We saw him first.”

“Nice bum.”

“Carol!”

And they both giggled.

“But you’re right,” continued Nash. Her first name was so long and full of repeating syllables that everyone just called her Nash.

“Good,” said Evie. “See you later.”

And she moved along towards Frozen Food.

A new one, she thought. Well it had to happen from time to time. Wonder how he got here… She’d have to wait until later. The Glasses and the Optician’s corner was after Bread and opposite the Canned Food. Unless of course she could see him from here. She turned and looked up the alley, across the central gap and up the next alley. She stared off into the distance. There was no one else around for the moment. Oh well, perhaps later then.

Frozen Food was chilly. What else could you say? You can never clearly see and touch the packets because they’re all in cabinets and glass fronted cupboards. And quite often the fronts misted up and it was even harder to see inside. Because of that Frozen Food was probably the alley that Evie liked the least. And then there was the chill. It was always a relief to get out to Soft Drinks.

Uh-oh! Big Bob.

He was standing looking at a promotional poster, but standing like hypnotised. That was his thing. He wasn’t dangerous or anything. He had never been the brightest penny before, but now, with a great lump missing from the back of his head, he did creep you out at times.

She moved over to the opposite side of the alley and slid her hand along the edge of the refrigerated cabinets as she walked. She stared straight ahead, doing her best to ignore Big Bob.

She felt the cold move up her arm and shivered.

“Evie!”

She jumped.

“Big Bob,” she said. “Yo.”

“Evie,” he said. He was just staring, but that and the cold made her skin prickle.

“Yep, that’s my name. But be careful or you’ll wear it out.”

She cringed inwardly. It was a terrible put down and Big Bob never understood anything much anyway.

“Evie,” he repeated. His mouth hung open. He seemed to be looking at something on the top of her head. She felt an irresistible desire to reach up and touch herself there, to check that everything was normal. But of course it was. This was Big Bob. He was capable of looking at a spot on the wall for hours on end.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “You good?”

She glanced up and down the alley, willing someone else to appear.

“Evie. Yeah. Good,” said the boy, still towering over her. “Pizza. Good.” He pointed over at the poster where an obscenely laden slice dripped chewing-gum like cheese as it was lifted by an invisible hand from the rest of the steaming pie.

“Don’t worry about it, Big Bob,” she said. It got to everyone after a while. “They never turn out like the picture on the packets. And it’s probably not good for you anyway.”

“Not good?” wondered the colossus. Overhead the lights flickered.

“Don’t let it get you down, Big Bob.” She looked around for something to distract him. “Why don’t you go see the biscuits? Change your ideas like..?”

“Nah,” he half moaned.

“The magazines then. There’s lots to look at there…”

“Yeah. Good.” A smile broke onto his face. “Yeah. See you Evie.” He shuffled off down the alley.

She sighed. He’d probably make a mess of the arrangements there, but he should find plenty to keep him occupied.

She waited until he had turned away at the end, only then did she feel she could get walking again.

She set off walking at a brisk pace. She felt the cold all over now, and once it set in, sometimes it could take all day to feel normal again.

When had everybody started meeting up here? Evie didn’t really know. It was just the way things worked. It was so easy. You didn’t even have to take a trolley, you could just come in and wander around and there was no one to worry you. You were out of the cold and the rain, and because everyone did it, you were sure you’d see all of your friends sooner or later.

She finished the Soft Drinks and moved onto Cakes and Bread. Before she knew it she was in with the Canned Food and the really short space for Speciality and Exotic Goods. Fancy bottles of olive oil were lined up above soy sauce, arrabbiata and rice cakes. The packagings were gaudy and lively, somehow rustic and amateur. And where the other shelves had long rows of identical boxes and tins, or nearly the same, here everything was pushed up together. It was like finding a small corner shop hidden away inside the great hanger of the supermarket. This section even smelled different. The other alleys smelt of plastic and disinfectant and floor wax, but here the fragrances seemed to hover in the air, overflowing their cramped space: dried tomatoes and fresh herbs, musty spices and a hint of seafood.

She paused and closed her eyes as she drank in this special little corner.

She opened her eyes again and saw Pete staring at her from over the alley, peeping round a stand of brochures on Financial Information and Insurance.

She smiled.

What a stupid place to hide. It wasn’t as if you could even pretend to be interested in that stuff.

Then it dawned on her. Pete was the new boy Carol and Nash had been talking about.

She looked around and sure enough there they were, watching her from the mouth of an alley just at the end of Canned Fruit and Puddings.

She waved her hands at them, shooing them away then sticking her tongue out when they made to ignore her. They pretended to be offended and walked away, noses in the air and giggling.

Evie looked over at Pete. She lifted her hand, made a small wave and strolled over. He was blinking, with a slight air of panic.

“Hi Pete. When d’you get in?” she asked.

“This night… I…” He swallowed. “You’re..? I mean…”

“Yes,” said Evie, and she put her hand on his arm. “Take it easy. Gets to you at first…” She looked him up and down. His white tee-shirt was soaked in blood on the right-hand side. The stain continued on his pants.

“Stabbing?” she said, as much for herself.

He nodded.

“I mean… But you’re…”

“Take your time. It’s different now. Just take it slowly.” She stepped back. “Perhaps you should get changed first…”

“But… But how..?”

“Stop it, worrycat. Just come along.”

“Carol and Nash saw you first. Probably when you arrived. You remember them don’t you? Drunken driver about a year and a half ago.”

Debs limped by with her trolley, still texting. She nodded, then raised her eyebrows as she looked at the screen on her phone, and was past them, and back into her own little world.

“Debs — don’t think you knew her — kidney failure. No donors, and she died from an infection.”

Pete winced.

“You’ll get used to it, Petey,” said Evie, taking his arm. “We’re all dead here…” She pulled him to her side. “C’mon, let’s go and get you some new rags.”

THE END

This story was suggested by Ludivine.

I suppose I should mention that I have nothing against Tesco, and this story should not be taken to mean that. It was just a place where the kids wanted to go and meet. Could have been anywhere, but they chose Tesco.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

Usually she liked to dawdle, to look at the squirrels bounding through the grass so fluidly, or perching, head down, from the yew trees, as if puzzling at the inscriptions under the moss and lichen and ivy on the grey stones, trying to make out the features on the statues draped with the traces of rain and the seagulls and the centuries of wear.

But today she was in a hurry, skipping along the path and humming to herself when she saw the flash of light like sunlight flickering from behind the clouds and illuminating the flower beds, the grassy verges, the bench bleached grey with age, the walls of split flints. For a moment everything took on a brightness, a relief, and then faded again as the light disappeared, becoming pale shadows of this other, better, reality.

She looked over across the patchwork of old graves to where she’d seen the light and saw white robes and feathers sticking out from behind the twin graves of Robert and Elisabeth England, 1829-1857 and 1834-1869, respectively.

It could have been someone had just dumped stuff in the graveyard. People were always doing that, she sighed. Or the squirrels threw things out of the rubbish bins when they rummaged through. But the white sheet was glowing like something from an ad for washing powder. And as she looked, the feathers twitched.

So she stopped, stepped over the stones laid down at the edge of the path, and walked to the tombstones, taking care to walk between the graves, even the small ones. The idea of walking on dead people made her tummy go all woozy and funny.

The angel was bent in two, holding tight to a great shining sword as if the grip of nausea, as if it was about to fall, to sink to its knees and bury its face into the grass and moss and clover and daisies.

“I know what you are,” said Sophie blowing a bubble, bursting it with her tongue and pulling the pink gum back into her mouth. “You’re an angel.”

The face turned and looked at her.

It was a terrible face. Not horrible, but terrible. The eyes seemed to look right through her and see only dust. Yet it wasn’t that it was disagreeable to look at, it just seemed only partially there, as if she was seeing it and at the same time the skull and nerves and tendons and muscles and blood vessels underneath as well as the faces it had been, and the faces it would be. The features didn’t belong to a boy nor a girl, but both at once. And neither.

The angel pressed down on its sword, puling itself up until it towered over the girl. It pulled on its immaculate robes and stretched its wings, and seemed to settle a little, decreasing in size, becoming a mite less menacing. But still it gripped its shiny sword.

“You may call me that,” it said. But its lips didn’t move as it spoke, and its voice was like the dry rustle of wind on leaves.

“You all right? I mean, you sure you’re not lost or anything?” asked the girl. She saw a white feather lying on Elisabeth England’s grave and couldn’t decide if it came from a seagull or from the angel. A seagull surely, whoever heard of an angel losing its feathers.

“I am not lost. No,” came the voice. “I am exactly where I need to be.”

“Right, I’ll leave you then,” said the girl, hopping from one foot to the other. “I’ve got to be going off to school,” she added by way of an explanation.

“Ah,” said the voice. “But I came to see you. It is not appropriate that I accompany you to school.”

Sophie looked the angel up and down.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

They stood for a while in the graveyard, facing each other. Sophie thought of all the warnings that people were always giving out: parents, school, on the telly… But an angel?

“Let’s go get a drink,” she said.

They walked out of the churchyard, round the corner and into the McDonald’s.

Indie saw Sophie come in, holding the doors open for the old man bent almost double as he pressed down on his walking stick. He wasn’t her Granddad, that she was sure. Just one of the crumbles that wandered around town, taking in the sun on the sea front and smelling funny. She stifled a yawn before Mehdi noticed, and switched on her smile. She’d wanted to leave school, earn some money for herself. Instead she’d just exchanged the dark blue uniform for a polyester top and slacks, and Mehdi the Manager’s pep talks for morning Assembly. And there was the smell of grease that she just couldn’t seem to wash out of her hair.

Sophie and the old man arrived at the counter.

“Hi, Soph.”

“Hi Indie, you good?”

She nodded.

“I’ll take a Coke,” said Sophie.

“Super..?” asked the other, mechanically. “And for..?”

Sophie turned to the angel.

“What d’you want?” She felt into her bag and reassuringly brought out a purse. “S’alright. I can pay.”

The angel looked around, a little lost under the muted neons and plastic.

“Milk?” it suggested.

Behind the counter, Indie’s smile melted to a frown.

“Get him a latte,” suggested Sophie.

Indie tapped the command on the till, took the coins that Sophie set down on the counter, and set down a tray.

“Go and find yourself somewhere to sit down,” said Sophie to the angel. “I’ll come and join you.”

“Family?” asked the other girl as she plunked down the two cardboard cups.

“Nah. Found him in the churchyard. Looks a bit lost.”

Indie replied with the sort of look you give someone who always manages to find stray kittens, birds with broken wings, and old folk lost in the street. And who always manages to find them adorable.

“Rather you than me…” she said.

Sophie shrugged, then carried the tray over to the window, nodding to a couple of girls seated on the side a they looked over. In a couple of minutes, she was sure, Indie would wander over to wipe their table and gossip.

She sat down.

The sword stood against the table and the angel was gazing at the street outside.

“So what are you doing here then?” she asked, pushing the cup and the sugar and the small plastic stirrer over towards the angel.

“I am doing that which must be done.”

“Like a guardian angel, looking out on people? Checking they’re alright and all?”

She sucked at the cold sweet liquid.

“I do not think so,” came the voice, still that voice.

Sophie wondered why everyone else in the place didn’t turn and stare when they heard the voice. It was like stones moving, like water rushing past.

“I do not know of any guardian angels myself.” And then, seeing her face, the angel added, “But I have no doubt that they should exist.”

But not here. But not now.

“What do you do then?” asked Sophie as her straw started making gurgling noises among the ice cubes at the bottom of her drink. The coffee in front of the angel was still untouched.

“I have crushed civilisations and razed cities. I have confounded His enemies. I flown higher that the Sun. I have peered into the Pit and I have rejoiced.”

“Oh,” said Sophie. “I didn’t know angels did that sort of thing.” She paused. “I didn’t really know much about them. I supposed you just floated around singing. And harps. Something with harps, no?”

“I have no harp. I have a sword and I have my armour. But I have no harp.”

“Oh well. I imagine it’d just get in the way anyway.”

They both look out at the street, the passers-by, the occasional car rounding the corner. The shops, the signs. The birds sitting on the roof.

It was a very ordinary street, just round the corner from the churchyard.

“I think I’d better be getting off to school now,” said the girl. “Been lovely meeting you and all that.”

“Yes,” came the voice. “It is time.”

Sophie got up, waved at Indie who was in the corner wiping the tables, and pushed open the doors onto the pavement. he looked back at the table in the window where they’d been sitting but the angel wasn’t there. There were just the two cups on the table.

She glanced at the road and stepped off the curb.

The car that hit her came speeding round the corner. She was knocked to the side, spread out across the road like an abandoned doll.

The angel stood over her and with a sigh, cut her soul free with his great sword. A single white feather fell onto the tarmac.

THE END

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

We shot out from under the railway bridge to see the crowd, the blocked cars, the flashing lights of fire engines and police cars.

“Forget this for a lark,” I moaned. “We’ll never see nothing.”

“Yeah we will,” said Josh. “You’ll see.”

We dumped our bikes in the long grass behind the straggly privet hedge of what looked like an empty house on the corner and scrambled past the cars parked higgledy-piggledy along the coast road. The crowd pressing up against the promenade railings spilled out into the street, blocking access to the beach below. Kids and telephones and video cameras were being held high overhead.

“C’mon,” called Josh, and he darted towards the wooden sheds of the boating sheds over on the left.

He stuck a sandal in the chain-link fence and started pulling himself up. Soon we were both squatting on the sticky, tarry roof overlooking the small beach cove below that lay opposite the harbour mouth.

The fireman were scampering round like crabs across the rocks at the base of the lighthouse opposite, that bristled with blue mussels and spackled with cockles and guano. Most of them had stripped down, their uniforms and protective gear forming black piles on the pebbles like seaweed washed in after a storm.

The tide was coming in.

Only a thin tattered strip of sand was still visible and the waves were already breaking on the shingle beach, splattering into froth and foam and then nothingness before pulling back and rolling back up the slope.

“What’s going on?”

I squinted over at the crowd on the rocks.

“Someone’s stuck. Looks like his foot. They’re trying to get him out before he drowns.”

One of the men in the crowd at the foot of the rocks, his shins already buried in water, stood up and yelled to others higher up the beach. A procession was started carrying what looked like rusty wooden boards down across the stones and rocks. They piled them down like old driftwood, but they rang out like muted bells. Then they ran off for more. The scrum broke open allowing me to see the small figure in bright red trunks, crouching against the black trousers of the firemen who’d stayed with him.

Our mums would always warn us off the rocks and pools when we said we were going swimming. They were full of tales of kids who’d fallen into steep, deep pools and couldn’t get out, or how, when the tide turned, the holes in the mud could change into quicksand and pull you under. But, of course, mums always said things like that.

A wave washed round the figures huddling together at the foot of the rocks.

Someone grabbed a spade and started jabbing it into the water. Another thrust one of the boards upright into the exact same spot, then held it while a third hit down with a sledgehammer. The board gave out a dull chime with each stroke. This became a rhythm, Ka-lung! Ka-lung! Ka-lung! Ka-lung! and a pause as he moved to the next board, then Ka-lung! Ka-lung! Ka-lung! Ka-lung! again.

The human chain that had been carrying down these large metal plates was now busy piling sandbags on the crest of the small pebbled dunes that formed at the high-tide line. Others carried them down, sploshing through the water, and making great jets of spray when the bags were thrown into place.

Waves splashed and boiled at the growing barrier.

“Think they’ll have to cut his leg off?” asked Josh.

“They say a fox’ll bite its own paw off if it gets stuck in a trap,” I said, remembering something I’d read.

“No-o-o…” said Josh, looking more intensely at the still crouching couple at the heart of the action.

Towels were handed down the chain, and draped around the kid’s shoulders like a shroud.

Now they were carrying more equipment down.

A T-shirted figure whipped the cord on a small, portable pump, and then rewound it and pulled again until the chug-chug of the motor joined the percussive beat of the ringing metal plates and the soft cymbal swish of the sea. A dirty grey hose sucked at the water and spat it out in regular mouthfuls further along the shoreline. A man was standing in waders in the enclosed pool. He was holding a metal crowbar. He had been moving around, poking and levering the stick at places under the water around the man and the boy in red trunks.

Then the crouching fireman scooped up the skinny boy and a cheer broke out from the crowd up on the road. An man and a woman in St.John’s Ambulance uniforms dashed down to meet the fireman, wrapping the boy in grey-blue blankets the colour of weathered timber. They busied him up the beach, carrying him in a makeshift cradle that they made by crossing their arms.

Someone switched off the pump and the clanging-banging-clugging stopped and there was only the murmurs of the crowd and the sea, and the cries of the gulls overhead.

The men started dismantling the wall, pulling away the sandbags.

“Bet someone’s gonna get a bollocking from his Mum,” said Josh.

“You really think they’d cut his leg off if they couldn’t get him out in time?” I wondered.

“Nah, I think they’d just given him a snorkel and waited for the tide to go out again.”

The roof was sticky under out feet and knees. Down on the road the crowd was already breaking up around the edges. A siren sounded as a Police car pulled to the side, and uniforms got out to smooth the traffic flow. Soon someone would notice us up here and we’d have to scarper, but for the moment we basked in the sun and the salt and the slight breeze from over the harbour.

“Cally goes skinny dipping,” I blurted out.

“Straight up?” said Josh, looking over at me with eyebrows raised.

Cally was in our year, but not in our class. But we knew all the girls in our year by sight.

“How..?” started Josh.

“I just saw her. One evening. On the beach over the footbridge…”

I’d been looking for driftwood to make a fire, or see if anyone else was thinking of doing the same thing. The fuddies who lived along the beach had got into calling the Police as soon as they saw anything, but there were still a couple of spots where we could congregate in the shallow shingle dunes out of view of both the houses lining the road and the beachcombers picking their way along the shoreline.

“Did she take it all off?” he goggled.

“Think so,” I said. “But it’s hard to tell in the dark y’know.”

“Nah, you’re pulling me leg. Even if you did see her, you didn’t see nothing.”

He pushed at me dismissively.

“Watch it!” I called, pushing back. “You’re only jealous.”

“In your mind mate. In your tiny little mind…”

He pushed himself up, arms outstretched for balance on the sloping rooftop. He turned, leaning over me. “So what colour is she? Down there then?”

“Josh, you jerk. She’s not one of your bottle-blonde bimbos. She’s black. What colour do you expect? Sky blue pink?”

I pushed myself up, levering my hands on my knees. I didn’t want to sink into the sticky roof.

“Doesn’t prove anything,” Josh said, looking down at the fence. It looked higher now we had to climb down. “You said it was dark, could’ve been my Gran for all you know, you idiot.”

I remembered the shape of her breasts and her bottom silhouetted against the sky, the way she seemed to flow and jiggle when she moved, the light catching on her skin when she stood up in the water, the way she shook her long hair, matted like handfuls of kelp.

“If you say so, Josh. If you say so.”

We clambered down, feeling the wooden building shake, scuffing the gravel as we landed. Josh darted off, dancing through the slow moving traffic. A car flashed its headlights. The back of his baggy bermudas was smeared with tar. I supposed I must be in the same state.

We pulled our bikes up from the yellowing seed heads and dry brown thistles, and without saying a word launched along the uneven pavement, past the last stragglers opposite, and on towards town.

The gulls swooped and circled overhead, jeering and mewing and waiting to get the beach back to themselves.

Josh slowed down, then grabbed my arm as I came alongside.

“Race you to the footbridge,” he said.

He punched me in the upper arm, jabbing me sharply with his knuckles, leaving me swaying on my bike to recover my balance as he weighed down on his peddles and sped off ahead. Josh could be stupid sometimes, but he was my best friend.

As we neared the footbridge the tide was pushing up the river. It had already covered the stinking mud flats and the prairies of sea grass, and was licking at the motley collection of houseboats that lined the river bank like abandoned boxes. Without a word we unsaddled and pushed our bikes over. The concrete here was rough and worn, with uneven gaps between the different sections. Besides the risk of a puncture, if you carried on biking you also had to weave round the babies in buggies and the foreign-exchange students who babbled together and strolled as a lump, blocking everyone else and muttering under their breath in languages we didn’t understand when we tried to squeeze past. Josh pushed down on a pedal and scooted the last few meters, using the momentum to carry him out onto the street, hanging onto his bike at a weird angle until he slowed almost at a halt then they his leg over the saddle and rode on to wait for me outside the chip shop. It went without saying. They made the best chips for miles around so we always stopped for a basket. I suspected that they powdered them with sugar and then a sprinkle of salt to bring out the taste. Josh always had melted cheese and mayonnaise on his. In my book, that was close to sacrilege.

Munching chips and licking fingers we pushed our bikes along by the handlebars until we got to the beach.

“Cally lives in one of them houses,” I said, pointing with the greasy polystyrene basket to the row of house on the left that stood on the edge of the beach. Houses here were always being repaired. The storms, the sand, the salt air ate away and corroded everything — paint, window frames and panelling, exposed pipes, even the bricks. This gave the houses a worn, run down, ramshackle air.

“Huh,” said Josh, wiping his fingers round the get the last of the melted cheese. He wiped his hands on the back of his pants adding new marks there alongside the tar and the dust.

We left our bicycles in a clump of waxy sea thistles, frosted with sand, and then kicked stones over the dunes where the tide was now scratching at the high water marks.

Out at sea some brave soul was pulling at the sail of his windsurf and, further out, container ships were waiting to come and dock and offload at the harbour. The sky was a near uniform blue, like a new tee-shirt and just barely creased with a few mare’s tail clouds.

“So you coming back tonight?” asked Josh as for the third time his stone had sunk on the second bounce. The sea was too choppy for playing ducks and drakes.

“Maybe,” I said, looking back towards the houses, trying to figure out which one was Cally’s. But we were all alone on the beach.

“I’ll probably see you then,” he said.

What I hadn’t told Josh was what I had seen that night.

Sure, Cally had come crunching over the stones as I’d been lying on my back, looking up at the stars and hoping to catch a meteor shower, or at least a shooting star. I’d rolled over and watched her progression to the seashore. But when she started undressing it was too late to do anything. I could only watch.

I knew her by sight, of course, but we didn’t really have any friends in common. If I’d have called out when I’d first seen her, we might have chatted awkwardly, maybe not. I didn’t know if she had a regular, but she was real pretty. She had beautiful skin, that seemed to have a velvety feel. And she didn’t try to hide it under layers of makeup like some girls. She had a high forehead, and generally tied her locks back which showed it off. Large eyes with what seemed like natural shading all around that set them off wonderfully. Full sexy lips that half the girls in my class would be paying to have done in a few years time. She had a slightly longer than usual neck, and she was thin, but without being skinny — athletic is what people say. But she wasn’t an ironing board. She had good boobs and hips, and you couldn’t help noticing her when she moved.

I watched her slip out of shoes and walk to where the water lapped at her toes. She came back and pulled off her clothes, right down to her knickers. Then she ran out into the water, diving into the waves. I must have lost her for a while because I didn’t see her head in the water.

I watched the lighter patches where the waves broke, the lights from the ships on the horizon, the stars twinkling over the sea.

At some point there were shouts and a dog barking further up by the old fort, but they stopped just as quickly as they started and no-one came trekking up the beach to disturb my vigil and Cally’s swimming.

When I looked back at the water, I saw not one, but two dark forms bobbing slowly against the waves. Cally stood up, a black shadow against the grey sea. The other form floated alongside, like a ball bouncing on the surface, except she was talking to it, gesturing, moving her hands. Her body stiffened. I imagined she was angry at someone, or something.

The ball seemed to grow larger, but then I realised the other person was getting up. But what was it? It was like a tangle of seaweed, reaching over and wrapping itself around her, pulling her closer. She moved towards it. The arms lifted and moved. She fell back into the sea. I heard the splash. Yet as the waves washed over the spot, erasing the ripples and ruffles, it was like she’d never been there.

I waited for her to appear again, checking out different areas until my eyes ached. Finally, I got up and walked back to my bike.

The last thing I saw when I turned back towards the sea was the small pile of her clothes, silhouetted against the colourless sky.

I waited for Josh on a bench outside the chip shop. The street lights were coming on, flickering orange against a darkening sky with just a blaze of clouds to the West. They turned gold then purple and pink, then dark blue and finally grey as the sun set. On the other side of the footbridge, the bells rang out at St. Mary’s. They were practising long descending peels that seemed to double back upon themselves before tripping down helter-skelter like a kid in a playground shooting down the slide then running back up the steps and down again. As the bells stopped, the last birds flew around before settling into roosts for the night.

Josh’s bike came clanking up the pavement.

“You ready?” he asked, setting a foot down to steady himself.

I nodded and we sped along to the end of the street and the path to the beach.

We left our bikes up against a wall in the shadow and traipsed noisily over the pebbles, avoiding the patches of thistles in the half light as our eyes got accustomed to the dark.

We lay in a hollow and waited, Josh occasionally trying to skim a stone over the shingle. Sometimes it worked. Most times they’d ricochet off in all directions.

The sea lapped at the shore like someone breathing. From time to time a car would drive by on the coast road, or a door would slam and a dog bark, but the calm of the beach would return and then it was just Josh and me, lying under the stars.

“She ain’t coming,” he said. And although he didn’t say it, his tone implied I’d invented everything. And some part of me thought that perhaps he was right.

He stood up against the night sky.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow then.”

And he was gone, the sound of his sandals on the pebbles absorbed by the cool wash-wash of the waves.

I rolled over and looked over at the sea, at the blinking lights of the buoys, of the ships out on the horizon, or the occasional reflection of the stars. And grey waves cresting and breaking, pulling back and starting over again.

I stood up and walked over to the shore. I undressed, folding my clothes and putting them on my trainers until I stood again and felt the slight sea breeze tickling me. I walked into the water, felt the first shock as the cold waves splashed around my thighs, then ducked down, feeling the bubbles and the roar in my eyes, and then the almost stickines of the surface as I emerged and could breathe again.

I tasted the salt drip into my mouth, burning my tongue before it faded an became fish and crabs and seaweed and sea air and everything I had known.

I lay back, floating on the surface, lapped by the waves, weightless, just listening to the sea breathing all around me, carrying me up. Until I too, became part of the sea.

And so I too, lay there, floating, waiting for the tentacles to come.

THE END

So here is another of the South Coast stories, stories I realised, inspired by the places I knew when I was a teen and the place I lived. It is pretty obvious that a lot of this came back to me when we visited my brother and his family last August, but I have used this setting before. And, my apologies to the residents, I have shrunk Kingston Beach a little.

This was also inspired by an actual incident that I remember, when a kid did get his foot stuck in the rocks with the tide coming in, and the fire brigade mounted a big operation to keep the water away while they rescued him.

This story came to me with a beginning, a middle and an end. This is not unusual, as I generally know where a story should go, although in some cases I just have a beginning and then just write to find out more. Except that this one didn’t go there. As I was writing it, the end changed itself. It surprised me, but my original end seemed contrived where this one flowed naturally out of the story.

Hope you like it.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

I must have blacked out.

I opened my eyes and it seemed no time had passed, the bush above me was still gently rocking.

I untangled my limbs and pushed myself to a seated position. Grain had spilled out of one of the packs and littered the ground all around. My leg reminded me of its presence with waves of pain every time I moved a muscle. I tasted blood in my mouth.

Looking around, I saw I had just missed a row of rectangular rocks. I dread to think what had happened if I’d’ve landed on them.

Then it started raining small rocks or pebbles around me. I felt for the Blunderbuss, but it was no longer hanging across my chest. It couldn’t be far. Probably on the other side of the bush. But that was as good as a world away if I couldn’t move.

I looked around to see where the stones were coming from

Up above, I saw the pathways swinging slightly as they stretched across a sky streaked with orange and purple. I twisted round as far as I could without fainting again, and saw Sarah Epiphyte hanging out of the platform I had just left. She was moving or waving or something.

Something hit me on the side of the head.

She wasn’t waving. It was her doing the throwing. I looked around, still a little dazed. And saw that these weren’t stones. She was throwing nuts, or a fruit with a thick husk, probably from the tree where the platform was. I rubbed my head where she’d hit me.

Sarah Epiphyte broke into a smile and waved.

I pointed at my leg and made a gesture like snapping a twig. She waved again and disappeared back inside the cover of the leaves. I just hoped she understood and wasn’t expecting me to climb back up and join her.

I felt drained. I just wanted to lie back and rest.

I heard rustlings in the undergrowth around me. It occurred to me that we’d never asked ourselves why they’d built these passages up in the treetops. What was there down here that was so terrible?

I sorted through the packs and bags and boxes until I found a knife with a curved blade about as long as my forearm. I pulled it from its sheath. If something was approaching, I’d feel a lot better holding that. I also slipped off the round of cartridges. Until I found the Blunderbuss again, they were just a hindrance.

There was some more rustlings, closer this time. I looked up and back. Sarah Epiphyte was out of sight. I gripped the knife harder and anxiously scanned the bracken and thorn bushes all around. I closed my other hand round a decent-sized rock, and waited.

The bush to my right shifted.

I hefted the stone, ready to flatten whatever was coming.

Leaves moved.

“You better watch that rock.” It was Gramps’ voice. Coming from the bush. “Put it down. I’m a coming out.”

The leaves parted and Gramps’ face, red and brown and white crinkles appeared.

“Whoa!” I called out.

“Ssh! Keep it down!” he hissed.

He shifted forwards and slid round the bush. Bringing the leaves and vines and thorns with him.

He then kneeled over to look at my leg and I saw he was wearing a sort of sacking covered with leaves and stuff. He saw me staring and smiled.

“We’d better fix that leg o’ yours. Here take this.”

He passed me a Blunderbuss. Judging from the bumps and scratches, it was the one I’d dropped. I pulled on the lever to arm it, checked the gauges and sights like he’d taught me to. I checked it was set to spray wide. If something did come after us, I wouldn’t have time to be precise.

“Ow!”

I jerked back. Gramps had been prodding my leg.

“Don’t think it’s fractured,” he muttered. “But it’s swelling up something nasty. Here, bite on this.” He handed me a short branch. “Stop you crying out,” he said by way of an explanation.

I sank my back teeth into the tender wood and braced myself.

He pulled up the strange covering he was wearing and fussed around, finally pulling out one of the boxes he’d been carrying. He set it down. It opened with a faint sigh as if it could breathe. Inside it was a ghostly white like the inside of an eggshell. He pulled out an object like a small twig, except this was white too.

“Ready, boy?”

He looked at me, at the stick in my mouth, at my arms bracing myself against the ground in anticipation.

Then he stabbed my leg with the twig thing, just above the ankle. Pain flashed in front of my eye like the lights in the night sky. My jaw ached where I had bitten down on the stick.

A cold worse than pain crept along my leg.

He pulled something limp and white from the box and wrapped it around the ankle. This time there was no pain, just a dim distant feeling like something half forgotten.

I watched his hands spread this cloth around my ankle. He pulled a smooth shiny pebble from the box and held it against the cloth. He tapped on it, looking hard at it all the time. The cloth stiffened around my ankle, pulling my foot into position.

I tried, but still I couldn’t feel my foot. I couldn’t even move it. Not even my toes.

Gramps put the pebble and the twig back in the box and closed it. The box sighed again.

He reached down and with a knife, cut off part of his sacking. He knotted it tight round my foot and ankle, hiding the bright white cloth.

“You can probably walk on it now, but I doubt you should,” he mumbled. “And get your eyes off of me. You’s supposed to be watching out.”

Guiltily I scanned the woods around us.

He stood up, gripping his Blunderbuss and looked back at the trees where, presumably, Sarah Epiphyte was still in hiding. He waved his hands then pointed at the ground. The leaves moved, and the girl careened down a rope before crouching to hide from sight.

Gramps picked up my large curved knife and with one blow, separated a long straight branch from a small tree nearby. A few more lazy strokes stripped twigs and smoothed rough patches. He passed me what had now become a solid staff.

Sarah Epiphyte appeared, crouching as she moved towards us.

“Still no sign,” she said to Gramps, shaking her head. “I don’t understand how they manage to keep disappearing like that.”

“Harumph,” said Gramps. “I’ve got an idea. In fact, they got us pretty much where they wanted us… C’mon.”

I pulled myself up. I could feel my foot when I tried to walk on it, but it was more like it just wasn’t there. Sarah Epiphyte looked at me with her mouth open. I’d be the first to admit I was astounded by what Gramps had done, but I wasn’t going to show it. I swung the Blunderbuss over my back. It wasn’t possible to hold it and the staff. I smiled at Sarah Epiphyte. She stuck her tongue out at me. And we were off.

We zig-zagged round some bushes and came to a black hole. It was as simple as that.

At first it wasn’t a hole, just a large patch of shadow under the trees, but as we approached it became clear that the darkness extended out and down from where we were standing.

Gramps walked round, pushing at the edges of the shadow with the butt of his Blunderbuss until he stopped and said, “It’s here.”

He stepped into the hole.

I suppose I expected him to disappear and be swallowed up by the darkness. I had already started to cry out.

He turned and looked at us.

“C’mon then!”

He was just standing on a step, leading down into the shadows.

We followed him down.

At first, light filtered down from above, but after a while without us really noticing, a pale blue light seemed to drift down from the ceiling.

It was when we were all bathed in this calm blue light that we had a look at our surroundings. Everything, except us, had the same slightly glowing appearance. Everything was too smooth and regular to be natural. But I had no idea how it could be here. Curiously enough, in this strange light, we appeared as black as moving shadows. Only our nails and teeth flashed like blue-white fireflies. And the cloth on my ankle when it peeked out from behind the sacking.

The stairs disappeared, leaving us to move along a short passageway, leading up to a flat wall. There was nowhere to go. So I was surprised to see Gramps walk up to the wall and place the silhouette of his hand in the middle of a circle that I had just taken for some vague mark in the half light.

There was a noise like some great creature breathing and the wall opened. I felt Sarah Epiphyte holding onto my arm, pinching me. If I’d have had a hand free, I’d probably have done the same.

Gramps made a noise like he was coughing and shook his head. He cocked his Blunderbuss and walked in.

I looked at Sarah Epiphyte. Her eyes were closed as she felt out the way ahead.

“It’s the old one, just him,” she said at last. “But I think Gramps already knows that…”

I lead her through the doorway along the corridor behind Gramps. Lights set into the walls curved into distance, showing the way and blinking as Gramps passed in front of them.

We caught up with him just as he turned off to the right, still following the lights. There was another wall.

I looked for another circle for Gramps to do the same trick but he just stood there motionless as the lights behind us gradually faded, leaving only the wall ahead faintly illuminated.

“Stop buggering around Davey. And open up.” I heard Gramps mutter.

“I was just making sure it was you Charles. After all these years. Only us left. Quite an occasion. And who..?”

The voice came from all around. It was cold, and old. I didn’t need Sarah Epiphyte to tell me who it was.

“They’re young’uns from outside. She’s one of the talented ones.”

“See, we did some good here too, didn’t we?”

“You can believes what you wants. I’ve got a job to finish. Nothing personal, just a job.”

“Charles the Cleaner. Oh yes, I know. So quiet, so discreet. We were 57 survivors and now…”

“There’s just you. I know. I figured it’d be you behind the scenes, pulling the strings like you do so well.”

Gramps knelt on the floor, unpacking the boxes he was carrying. He opened one whose insides glowed like teeth in the strange light.

“So Davey, I’m coming in. Are you going to open up, or am I gonna have to do it the hard way? You know I can.”

“Since you ask, Charles, no. I wasn’t planning on inviting you any further.”

Gramps was holding something from the box to the base of the wall.

“Why’d you bother then?” he said.

Sarah Epiphyte’s nails bit into my arm as, silently, the walls changed place and we were shut in.

“I thought we needed to talk, Charles. Try to understand each other. As the last survivors. Some sort of bond.”

Sarah Epiphyte relaxed her grip, closed her eyes and investigated our surroundings as only she, as only a pig knew how.

“You do enough talking for two, for hundreds even, Davey. Now’s not the time for talking, but for action. For getting things done.”

Gramps now had a hole in the wall, and vines and cods from his box passed into the hole. He could only have placed them there, they couldn’t have grown that quickly.

“But killing and destruction’s no solution, Charles. There has to be another way.”

“So it was fine while you was doing it, but suddenly no longer right when you’re on the receiving end? You destroyed one world, our world, and if someone doesn’t stop you, you’ll destroy this one too.”

Lights flashed and glowed in Gramps’ hands. He grunted.

“Charles, it was an accident. You know it was.”

“It might have been an accident, but it was all part of a general way of doing things that wasn’t. It it hadn’t been this accident, it would have been another.”

“The old one,” hissed Sarah Epiphyte. “He’s all around us now.”

“Yes girl, I know.”

Gramps turned his attention to us.

“Let go your packs. Leave ‘em here. Get ready to follow me.” Looking at me, he said, “If you can’t carry the canon, give it to the girl, and take that big knife of yours at least.”

We shed the packets and ropes and sacks and boxes.

“We need to talk Charles. I’ve been studying the zone since we arrived. The changes, the radiation, the mutations. I’ve got acres of crystal in here. Just data. I need help organising it. Now you’re here you can help…”

“Yep,” growled Gramps. And a slit appeared in the wall opposite. It opened to a hole.

Gramps kicked his box through.

“C’mon!” he called out. “Don’t know how long it’ll last.”

We darted through the hole after him, me bouncing on my stick.

The next room was a series of alcoves. All our size, but like if you’d stepped into a hive or something.

“Look for the strongest signal, girl,” said Gramps recovering his box and preparing to attack a new wall in the same way. “Then point me in the right direction.”

Sarah Epiphyte closed her eyes.

The gap behind us folded itself back into place. But the light in the room remained. It wasn’t strong but appeared to be all around us, surrounding us, bathing us. The voice filled the air in the same way as the light. It appeared to have no direction, no focus.

“Charles, think of all we can bring them. They’re like children—”

“Yep. And with you, they got no future.”

Gramps’ fingers were busy, they’d already peeled away strips from the different lumps and ridges round the room. Sarah Epiphyte was standing, swaying slightly, eyes closed and slowly rotating as she felt for the invisible presence.

The voice around us sighed. For the first time this sound, of breathing, of air being exhaled, seemed to contain a part of humanity.

“But that’s just it, Charles. I’ve been over the calculations a thousand times since, and checked them against star charts and geological records. We are their future…”

Gramps looked up.

“What’s with this nonsense?”

“It’s not. I can show you. But when the black hole — a mistake, I admit — when the black hole collapsed and blasted us away, we didn’t go somewhere else as we suspected. But back, far back into our own time. We sliced away a large part of their world, and replaced it with ours. From the future. That’s why you can’t kill me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

He had pulled the glistening vines across the room and was tying them to small white stones and rocks from his box. Sarah Epiphyte was still turning, humming in a quiet sing-song voice to herself.

“But don’t you see. If you kill me, they’ll have no future. Humanity will be eternally condemned to this absurd loop around the black hole. They’ll evolve, develop, progress, and then ‘Bang!’ go back, and all get killed. And then again, and again.”

“You was always a good one for talking, Davey.”

Gramps sat back, looking at the walls all around. I was just trying to take in, and make some sense of, what I was hearing.

Sarah Epiphyte stopped, pointing ahead. It was the nook to the right of where we’d entered.

“There are lots of them,” she said, eyes wide open now in wonder or fear or both. “But they’re all him. And there’s just him. I don’t know how he does it. But there’s just him.”

“Thanks, girl,” said Gramps. “If we do get out of here, I promise I’ll try and explain how he does it…”

He pulled on the vines and the back of the cranny burst open like a flower, from the middle, disappearing into its own petals until we were staring at a shadow like a black hole in the wall. I wondered if this was the black hole they’d been talking about.

“No reception committee, Davey?” called Gramps and his voice echoed in the darkness. “No lights? No fireworks?”

He stood up and shouldered his Blunderbuss, pointing it through the hole.

“I’m setting it to dispersion, Davey. That should give us a little light.”

“There’s no need…” came the voice. And as he spoke, the darkness faded into…

…into what?

Up to now, the rooms and passageways had been nothing more than some sort of manmade caves or holes. It was clear they weren’t natural, they were smooth and regular. But this was like returning to the forest above, yet it was also so different. Vines like those that Gramps has been pulling from the walls festooned the place, snaking across the ground, climbing round the tree stump like objects and hanging from the branches overhead. The light came from far away in all direction. From under the vines on the ground, from above and around as it grew dimmer under the accumulation of strange foliage.

Gramps shut his pack and carried it into the room.

“Boy,” he said. “Find something to leave in the doorway there. Something that’ll block it if he tries to close it or something.”

His voice startled me awake.

“Boy!” His voice was more urgent. “Wake up now. Get to it. Cut something if you needs to.”

Sarah Epiphyte and I bolted into the gaping mouth, my bad ankle forgotten for the moment. We looked around at the unknown landscape of trees and shrubs. Yet we knew they weren’t trees. The vines around seemed to throb and pulse, as if so heavy with sap they could burst at any moment, as if imbued with some life force. As if all this was one.

“What is it?” asked Sarah Epiphyte slowly.

“It’s vats,” said Gramps. “Where he copies himself. But don’t you go worrying yourselves with that. I’ll find where he’s hiding.” And then more urgently, “Now block that door!”

She started to pull at the stumps and branches, trying to find something we could move. Seeing her moving, I followed, pulling and pushing. As you touched them, some of the vines recoiled, or seemed to shift in your hands.

Sarah Epiphyte was rocking a block about half her own height.

“This one moves!” she called out.

We pulled at the vines, freeing it. Then I hacked away at others, spilling milky liquids and others transparent like water, except it didn’t smell like water as it oozed out around our feet. Other vines retracted when I cut them, and coiled back into the undergrowth like wounded animals.

We pushed and pulled and slid it over the creepers on the ground until we could force it into the entrance hole. We both glistened with the liquids from the plants we’d snapped and broken.

Then we set out to find some more material to block the doorway.

All the time, Gramps had been walking round the clearings peering into the great stumps that littered the place. When I looked up, he was no longer there.

I touched Sarah Epiphyte on the arm, and set my finger to my lips. I remembered the figure hanging from the tree, making the same gesture to me.

We both scanned the glades, looking for a movement. We saw nothing.

We peeled away to each side, making our way through the tangle and trails, taking care to make no noise and making eye contact as we searched.

She shook her head.

We kept searching.

Sarah Epiphyte lifted her head and felt the space around us. She opened her eyes and pointed further on in. Silently we made our way until we rounded a corner to a small alcove and found Gramps perched over one of the great stumps.

“You two?” he said, without looking round. “Come and see this. It’s edu-ca-tion-al for sure.”

We moved over, and tried to make sense of what we were seeing.

The top was translucent, misty, like milk poured into water. Inside we could make out a figure. It seemed slightly smaller than us, but seemed barely human. The liquid cleared, or it moved closer and we saw it as a shrivelled pinkish white body, picked out with blue marbling. Like some sort of cross between a grub and a new born piglet. It appeared to be lying on a bed of the peculiar vines that filled the rooms here. Or the vines entwined it, and held it. And the vines moved ever so slightly like weeds in a stream.

“This is David,” said Gramps. “Once a Master of the Universe, now… You’re not going to say Hello, Davey?”

Gramps kicked at the stump.

“You’re about to make a terrible mistake, Charles.”

The voice had followed us into this place too.

“Like the mistake you made, Davey? I don’t think so.”

“But we can change all that now—”

“That’s what I’m doing Davey. Making sure you lot don’t get another chance to make the same mistake twice. That’s my job, see? I’m just the janitor. Always cleaning up after you lot.”

He swung the Blunderbuss up and fired. The stump melted away, spilling frothing liquid over our legs and feet. The thing inside wheezed and spluttered.

“Gimme your knife, boy. I’ll finish it off.”

#

The Instructor pulled me from the vat and I stood dripping on the floor as the blue liquid oozed away from my body, regrouped and slipped back into the vat, ready for the next time.

The scene I had been watching still danced before my eyes: The body wriggling, twisting and then spouting blood as the knife slid across the throat.

I shivered, even though the temperature was perfectly adapted to my needs.

“Can I access the one they call ‘Gramps’ next time?” I asked.

“I am not authorised to talk about that person.”

“Oh…”

This was the first time I’d met an outright refusal.

“Next lesson you will be studying the person presented as Sarah Epiphyte. You should find her plenty to get going on with for the moment.”

I looked down to where my ankle ached. There was fresh bruising from where the boy had hurt his ankle in the fall. These simulations!

I nodded obediently, picked up a towel and padded out of the History Lesson.

THE END

This was a difficult story. Not to write, but just to keep up with. I knew where I wanted to go, but getting there took so much time. As it was, this is not only the longest story I have presented here so far, but it also took me three weeks to write. Much too long. If I write at that pace, I can never publish a new story each week. Which is also why I decided to cut this one in two, sorry.

The other difficulty was that, with my usual stories I can keep everything in my head as I’m working. With this one, I had to come back and make more than a few changes and corrections, rewrite a few passages, then reread and correct all the changes, all of which also took more time than I’d have liked.

It is not really a spooky tale, but the first side step into speculative fiction. As such, I wanted it to be open ended, and not provide you with all the answers. Feel free to provide your own.

Following this, in August, I started another speculative fiction story that I had to abandon. Oh, I’ll probably come back to it, because I like the world it is set in, as well as the first characters that I met there. But it was a very complex world, and would never do for a short story unless I had great long paragraphs of explanation, which would never make for a sizzling fun story. I suppose that that’s life.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and see you next week.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

She turned back to face us, shading her eyes as the sun was right overhead now. “Shouldn’t we done get some help? I mean, three, they’s just as many as us…”

“I pulled three before,” snorted Gramps.

“But—”

“No ‘buts’ about it, girl. You’s just the pig. I makes the decisions.” He hit the ground with the butt of his Blunderbuss, the notches along the handle witness to his prowess. “I says I can pull three and still be back by nightfall.”

I was out of the discussion, sitting on a fallen tree at the edge of the clearing, resting my back and shoulders from the weight of the bags and boxes I was carrying for Gramps. Even in the relative shade here, sweat was itching its way down my temples and neck. My shoulders felt like they were rising up all by themselves, and from time to time I twitched to stop this uncanny feeling, and pull them back into place.

I poked at the fallen leaves and tangle of growth under where I was sitting with the butt of the other Blunderbuss, the one I was supposed to be looking after. There was a glow of white in the decomposing vegetation and I bent over to free two fleshy grubs as big as my thumb. They writhed as they felt the warmth from my hand. I thought of offering one to Sarah Epiphyte.

“Don’t you go eating those!” called Gramps, eyes screwed up under his hat as he scowled at me. “Don’t you go eating nothing you finds out in the Rust, but ‘specially not those uns!”

I looked at the fat grubs. They looked harmless to me.

“And just why’s that?” I wanted to know.

“It’s all bad here,” he said. “That’s why you’re carrying our food and stuff. But them’s worse. Really, really bitter. Anything takes a bite out of them ain’t never gonna forget it in a long day.” He gave a dry laugh like a twig snapping. “Believe you me. They knows how to get folk to leave ‘em alone.”

I threw them over my shoulder, off into the thick undergrowth behind.

“C’mon boy,” he said, turning away. “Let’s get back moving if we gonna pull anything today…”

Gramps was still the best puller in the county, but he was getting old and needed someone to carry his stuff. And that someone was me. It didn’t help that we were out in the Rust, right out on the Edge. From here on the trees would be fat and twisted, with creeping roots that do their bestest to trip you, and the brown speckles that cover the leaves and trunks and gave the place its name. Some said the trees even moved around in the dark, changing paths and landmarks, out to catch the unwary. Gramps said it was just poppycock. And he should know. He was so old he remembered the Collision. He’d been a puller in the Rust all his life as far as we knew. If anyone knew the paths and ways here, he did. Of course, even though it wasn’t permitted, all us boys played in the woods round here, pretending to be pullers. But even I had never been this far out before.

I slipped the heavy rounds of greasy shots for the Blunderbuss back round my neck, pulled on the worn straps, and hauled the boxes onto my back. I picked up the spare Blunderbuss from where I’d left it, leaning against the fallen tree, and nodded at Gramps.

We set off through a gap in the bushes opposite. It was hard to make out the path rubbed into existence by small animals padding through the undergrowth. Or I at least hoped they were small.

Sarah Epiphyte lead, followed by Gramps, and then me, trailing at the end. Gramps had picked a way to the right of Sarah Epiphyte’s directions. I supposed he was going to circle round and approach his target from the side.

We pushed through the overhanging branches for a while. I watched out for ticks.

“Oooh!” came the girl’s voice through the bushes and brambles.

“Hush you there!” said Gramps in a low growl.

I rounded a last tree and saw it. A massive bar blocked our path, cutting across it diagonally. It wasn’t made of wood, that was sure. The surface where it showed clear was grey and speckled with mosses and lichens. It was taller than some of the trees here, quite easily three or four men high. In places you could even see the branches growing straight through it. That meant it was very old. It had probably arrived with the Collision. It stretched off on both sides, long and straight and massive.

I swatted the flies away from my face. As soon as you stopped moving out under the trees, they came at you. Folk said they were trying to lay eggs under your skin, and if they succeeded, and you didn’t burn them out, the maggots would work their way through your body, leaving only a husk behind when they turned into flies and burst out of your eyes and mouth and nose and ears and other places, and flew on to lay new eggs. I half believed it. They were large and leathery, and very hard to kill.

Gramps was whispering away with Sarah Epiphyte. It was only her first time out here. She had never even seen the Rust before. She’d been traded in from another camp. It was expensive, girls always were they said, but it was necessary. Only one girl was born for every five babbies at the camp, but only girls could have babbies, and if the camp was to survive we needed them. And only girls could be pigs.

Gramps turned to me, pointing off to the right. We were going to have to advance along this barrier until it ended, or until we could find a place to cross it. I set off ahead, glad to get moving away from the flies. Gramps and Sarah Epiphyte were still whispering. As I looked back, I saw her place her hands on the great barrier.

I was following a better sort of path, it wasn’t that hard to make out. From time to time, I broke a twig, or sliced a leaf in two with my thumbnail. Like that Gramps would know where I had been.

I pushed my way through a bush. Brambles and vines caught on the straps and the boxes and bags on my back. For a moment I thought I was going to be stuck here waiting for Gramps to catch me up and cut me free. Obviously them who had made the track had been travelling a lot closer to the ground. And no big animals had been through for quite a time. Which was reassuring.

I scraped free of the last snags and branches to find my way barred by a large tree trunk. Great sprawling, swollen roots twisted round the base. The barrier was still blocking my left-hand side. It was so close I could almost reach out and touch it. And it seemed to pass right through the trunk. I would have to find my way round on the other side. Either that, or I could rest a little and wait for the others to catch up.

It was hot and humid and close, even under the cover from the leaves. With my shoulders and legs aching and bleeding from the brambles, I took the second option.

I sat astride one of the roots that was fatter than my thigh, and eased the weight off of my back. I felt around the cases, still behind my back, for a skin of water. When I got it, I pulled the stopper and drank. The water was warm, and smelled of the tanning for the leather, but I felt as dry as a stone and drank down great gulps. It felt good as it dribbled down my chin and my chest.

At first I thought there were some insects buzzing around my head, but it was just leaves and small twigs and moss tumbling down around me. Then a ball dropped down against the tree trunk, just in front of me. I thought it could be a head, but it was covered in hair. And not like Sarah Epiphyte who had hair on the top of her head, but this was all over, like an animal. It was eerie. The eyes appeared where the mouth should be. The nose was in the right place, but it was red and pocked and peeling where it poked out through the hair. And the nostrils pointed upwards. A slit opened in the bristles and fur of the forehead.

As I watched, mesmerised, a paw appeared from above, from the mess of rusty leaves. The paw became a hand and extended a finger and placed it across the lips in a familiar gesture.

The thing in the tree was signing me to be silent.

I scrambled backwards, pinned to my position by the weight of the packets on my back.

Another hand appeared at the side of the head, and everything snapped into place as I realised my mistake. Whatever it was I had in front of me, it was hanging upside down from the tree.

Then the head disappeared in a cloud of red and white and grey and a clap of thunder.

I fell backwards, jerking my arms and legs like a beetle stuck on its shell. And as I lay there, I saw Gramps appear along the path I had followed, holding the smoking Blunderbuss. Sarah Epiphyte peeked out from behind him, her face screwed up in shock or pain.

Gramps reached over, grabbed my hand and levered me up. I saw that my chest was speckled with red.

“Get moving,” barked Gramps. “They know we’re here now.” He turned and looked at Sarah Epiphyte who nodded back. Then he thrust his Blunderbuss at me, seizing the other from my hands. “To work, boy!”

They set off briskly round the tree, leaving me staring at the great red flower splashed across the trunk.

When I came to my senses, I snapped open the Blunderbuss, licked my fingers before pulling out the copper casing and slipping it into the small bag at my belt. Cartridges were metal and metal was rare. And copper was good metal. I plucked a new cartridge from the belt around my neck and rearmed the weapon. I took a last look at the dead thing in the tree, the insects were already buzzing around it. I hopped over the roots and ran to catch up with Gramps and Sarah Epiphyte.

When I found them, they were squatting down in a small depression, next to the bar that was blocking our way. Sarah Epiphyte was feeling around a hole that lead underneath.

“We got to be absolutely sure,” Gramps was saying. “You got any doubts we can continue. We’ll surely find another one, bigger than this, further along.”

“But they’ve not gone,” said the girl, squatting down in front of the dark mouth. “I just can’t feel anything at all. I don’t like it. It’s not normal.”

Gramps turned as I clattered through the bushes.

“We’ll see,” he said.

I set down all that I had been carrying and Gramps unwound a length of rope, playing it into large coils in his hands. When he seemed satisfied with the feel of it all, he opened one of the bags and took out a large claw, made up of a handful of metal spikes radiating from a wooden palm. He lashed the claw to the end of the rope, tugged on it, then started swinging it round his head. Sarah Epiphyte and I crouched to the sides as it hummed in the air like a swarm of angry wasps. Then he let it go and it soared into the air, up and over the great barrier.

Gramps pulled on the end of the rope that hung down. It shifted a little. He tugged again, leaping into the air as he did, and the rope came cascading down around him. He darted off to one side as the claw came ripping through the leaves and growths above.

He grunted, coiled the rope again into a neat pile and repeated the whirling and the throwing.

This time when he set his whole weight to the rope, it remained fast.

“Boy,” he said, turning to me. “You’s gonna climb up here and have a look round. You sees anything out of the ordinary, you holla.” He faced Sarah Epiphyte now. “You, you try and get through this hole here, and see what you sees on the other side. You don’t needs stick your head out, just feel around. And holla too it you needs to.”

I hitched the Blunderbuss to my back, spat on my hands, and started up the rope, kicking off against the barrier as I scrambled up the side. Of course, as soon as you can’t hit back, the flies gathered round again.

At the top my hands were stinging and my arms aching. I looked down at Gramps. He had gathered up a handful of leaves and stuff and was vigourously rubbing his neck and forearms. I wasn’t the only one bothered by the flies then.

Up on top of the barrier it was like standing on the straightest path I’d ever seen. It stretched away into the tree tops as far as I could see on both sides. It was a pity we couldn’t follow it and find out where it lead to.

Gramps looked up. I waved and headed off to look down the other side to see if I could see where Sarah Epiphyte would emerge.

Lying down and peeping over the edge, I could just make out a path through the bushes below, where the animals who had used the passage continued their journey through the dense undergrowth. I saw no sign of Sarah Epiphyte however, and it would be difficult to see from up here if there was an ambush or a trap waiting for her down there.

I crawled back to the other side. As I looked down I saw Sarah Epiphyte squatting in the shade next to the boxes and bags I had been carrying. She touched Gramps on the elbow and he looked up too.

He waved at me to climb down.

Then it hit me.

A path up in the tree tops. And the one who tried to get me was coming from somewhere up above.

They were moving around up here. That was how they saw I was alone. And Sarah Epiphyte can’t feel them as she’s looking for something down below, near the ground.

I waved my arms, beckoning Sarah Epiphyte to come up and join me.

She turned to Gramps. He nodded.

It was obvious she wasn’t used to climbing. Her feet slipped and struggled against the surface, her tiny arm were taunt and awkward. As she approached, I leant over, grabbing the back of her robe, and helping her over the edge.

She sat for a moment, breathing deeply and rubbing her arms. Then she held her palms out, like feeling around in the dark, and closed her eyes.

She shifted around until she was pointing along the barrier in the direction we had come.

“There’s one back there,” she whispered, and opened her eyes.

I slithered over to the edge and signalled Gramps. I lifted one finger and then pointed back along our path the trees.

He signed that he had understood.

He collected the pile of sacks and packets that I’d carried here, and started roping them together. I pulled them up and Sarah Epiphyte helped me ease them over the lip.

I signalled that all was in order.

Gramps waved us on, set his hat back on his head, and trotted off back along the path. He’d kept a belt of cartridges and held the Blunderbuss at the ready.

With the rope now tied around my waist, I loaded everything on my back, pulled on the straps to ease them on my shoulders and followed Sarah Epiphyte. She moved around a lot faster up here. You could see she wasn’t used to our life yet, but she was a pleasure to watch. Her skin was copper, lighter than most from our camp, and quite matte. And she had freckles. She was the first person I’d ever seen with freckles and I thought them was spots until someone told me what they were and I decided they suited her. Her long dark hair had copper tints too, and her locks bounced on her back and shoulders as she marched. For the first time I also noticed how she wiggled her bottom with each step.

She stopped, and I nearly collided with her. Hands outstretched, she felt the air round the barrier until she was facing a clump of trees overhanging our path.

Then she span round, her nose almost rubbing against the cartridges on my chest. We both stepped back. She looked me up and down, almost as if she was wondering if I’d crept up on her on purpose.

I shrugged and mimed our near miss with my hands.

She smiled with a flash of teeth.

I saw that she had a gap in front. The old women must have clucked over that, they’d say it lets the luck flow out. And I knew what Gramps would say say to that, Your luck’s what you make it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sarah Epiphyte was pointing at the trees and miming holding a weapon. Was it an ambush, or did she want me to go over there with the Blunderbuss?

I tapped myself on the chest and pointed towards the trees.

She nodded.

I checked the Blunderbuss was primed, set it to my shoulder and started edging forwards. Sarah Epiphyte fell in behind me.

As we crept closer to the clumps of leaves overhanging our path, we heard a buzzing, rattling noise that grew stronger as we got nearer. Sarah Epiphyte tapped me on the shoulder. I froze.

I pushed the leaves aside and peered into the shade.

At first it was difficult to make anything out, and besides, it looked like part of the tree.

It was hanging head down from a branch above. And it seemed to be home to a large colony of insects. They were crawling all over it, beating their horny wings. As we watched, fascinated and horrified, we could see them dancing in and out of the gaping holes in the upside-down head: the mouth, the nostrils, the dark pits where the eyes had been. They were also crawling along and in and out of a great rift that split the belly.

We had no possible idea who he could have been. I felt myself shaking, like a sudden chill. Slowly we shifted backwards, out through the leaves and and back into the blinding light.

I breathed deeply.

Sarah Epiphyte pointed forward, then set off, saying nothing. I wiped my forearm across my forehead and followed.

We saw the next surprise as we left the dense foliage of the trees. In fact, had we not stopped to see the corpse in the shade we might have walked straight past without noticing anything. As it was, our eyes were darting right and left in case there was another corpse. Or worse.

At first it looked just like vines stretching across the backdrop of leaves but there was something too regular, unnatural, that made me look again.

I clucked, tapping my tongue against the roof of my mouth until Sarah Epiphyte looked back over her shoulder. I pointed over in the direction of the ropes running from tree to tree.

This was why she could no longer find their trace on the ground. They were travelling around in the treetops. This might also explain the two we had met, hanging upside down. Supposing that the second was one of them. They were coming down from paths up above.

We needed to let Gramps know.

I moved over to the edge and whistled a passable imitation of one of the more common birds here. The signal wasn’t in the call, but in the rhythm. I repeated the call.

I was about to start again when I got a reply. I whistled an acknowledgement then hid myself to be sure it was Gramps.

The bushes moved and he stepped out into the sunlight, the Blunderbuss pointing straight at my hiding place. I whistled again then poked more of my head over the edge and waved. He looked up, a quizzical expression on his wrinkled face. I pointed over to the other side, behind my back, and started to unwind the rope.

As I needed both hands to get Gramps up with us, I quickly showed Sarah Epiphyte the basics of how to use the Blunderbuss: how to wind it up, how to line up the sights, how to crank out the used cartridge… I set it to spray as large as possible. If she did need to use it, it wasn’t going to be precision shooting.

She stood with her back to me, holding it with two hands because of the weight while I looped the rope around my shoulders, spread my feet wide and hauled Gramps up to join us.

Sarah Epiphyte pointed out the hanging vine ropes and Gramps nodded. If Sarah Epiphyte said that this was the way to go, then we’d have to follow the paths through the treetops, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

For a start we needed to share the packs I was carrying, to spread the weight. Secondly, it was going to be slow. Gramps whispered that only one of us must be on the passages at any one time, otherwise it was too easy to trap us, or cut the supports and send us all plunging to the ground below. Finally, Sarah Epiphyte must travel between us. She was too precious to lose, so it was to be a Blunderbuss in front of her, and another behind.

When I finally set off, the sun was no longer overhead. Soon it would be behind the treetops, and then we should have to concern ourselves with getting back to camp before nightfall.

The ropes bounced as I tried to move quickly, but quite soon I found that I could use the vibrations to help push me forwards if I timed my steps right. It was like walking with a formidable spring in your step. What was difficult was trying to hold on with the Blunderbuss in my hands. In the end, I just let it bounce against my chest, confident that I could catch hold of it in no time if I needed to.

At last I was standing on a small platform, still feeling the bouncing in my legs even as I waited, motionless. I watched Sarah Epiphyte move towards me. Near the middle she halted, holding the ropes in both hands. She looked down. I saw her shuffling and turning, inspecting the ground below.

What was she doing?

Gramps had told us to move across as quickly as possible, that we were much too visible a target perched up above the forest floor, and here she was dallying…

She set off again, bouncing forwards, almost floating above the ropes as she sped to join me.

“The ground is covered in patterns,” she said, as she caught her breath. “All around.”

I looked over. All I could see was the bushes and the bracken, the vines and the thorns. I shook my head. But there again, Sarah Epiphyte was the pig. It was her job to sniff these things out.

“Idjit!” he called, and had a playful wipe at my ear. “I suppose you need help to aim your thingy when you piss. Look!”

She pointed to a group of shadows, then another. Then, over there where they run into a group of bushes growing out at a right angle.

Suddenly it was as if the ground below was speaking to me. I couldn’t recognise the patterns, but there was definitely something there. Or there had been.

“You’re woolgath’ring, boy!” said Gramps and he clipped my ear much harder than Sarah Epiphyte had. It stung like a bite from one of the flies. “I could’ve been picked off like a bird sitting on a branch!”

“Sarah Epiphyte was showing me something down below,” I protested.

“Them’s just ruins. Was a city here once. C’mon, haven’t got all day.”

He pushed past us to survey the next section of rope vines, scraping us with the packs on his back as he passed.

“What’s a city?” asked Sarah Epiphyte before I could.

“Ain’t nothing. Not no more. Now tell me which way we be going…”

The ropes formed a V, so we had two paths. The girl would have to chose. She lifted her hands and closed her eyes.

“The old one’s in that direction,” she said, pointing along the path to the left. “I can’t find any others.”

She looked up at Gramps. His skin was pale. You only saw it close up. Where you could see the patches and folds that hadn’t been burnt and grilled by the outside. For the first time it occurred to me that he wasn’t like us. Perhaps that was why he spent all his time out here, so folk wouldn’t notice.

“Gramps, why we hunting them?” I wanted to know.

“Just the way it is,” he shrugged, not looking at us. “Get ‘em fore they gets us.” He pulled the boxes onto his shoulders. “You’s just wasting breath asking questions boy. Get going!”

I set my feet on the ropes. Close to the platform it was easy going and I could move quite quickly, but as you got further out, it bounced and slid around and you had to take extra care.

I slowed down, steadying myself and gripping the rope with my right hand. Luckily for me, I was still wobbling when the shot flashed past, scorching the air around me head.

Sarah Epiphyte called out.

Forgetting where I was, I span round as a second shot seared past.

I fell.

My leg caught in the tangle of ropes and vines underfoot and for a second I hung upside down as the packs on my back continued falling, and crashed against my head and set me rocking.

I darted back up, bouncing on the ropes and with a jerk, my leg fell free. The pain jolted up to my knee, my hip, my spine.

And I was falling again.

END OF PART 1

Part two next week… See you.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 France License.

“Nah!”

The other retched, moving to the side with a jerky movement, his hand over his mouth and nose.

“Look, if you’re gonna puke… Not on the Scene, right?”

The Inspector kept his hands firmly on the other’s upper arm, and lead him out of the room, out of the flat, and into the stairwell. Graffiti, tags and scribbles bawled down from the cracked, damp and dirty walls and ceilings. They seated themselves on the steps, on a smattering of abandoned free news sheets and fly bills and junk mail, facing the padlocked lift doors as the younger of the two took deep breaths, his head between his knees.

“I’m… I’m better now,” he breathed. He looked sheepish, embarrassed like a school kid caught at fault by the teacher. “God, I never imagined…”

“Yeah, they can get quite pungent when they’ve been stewing like that for a few days. ‘Specially when it gets a bit warm. Like now. Of course, that’s how we finds them. The neighbours get a whiff, and then they suddenly remember they haven’t seen ole Whatsisname for three weeks…” He looked over the stairwell, the light seeping in here with the heat and the smell. No lights here. The switches were smashed or hanging loose. He eyed the broken railings. Probably half a dozen health and safety regulations were being flaunted right here under their noses.

The other tugged at his collar, pulling the top button open. “And the smell. It doesn’t get to you?” he asked, red-faced.

The older Inspector slipped a hand into a greasy pocket and pulled out a small pot. “Vicks,” he said. “Rub a bit just under your nostrils. Burns a bit, but kills the stink.” He chuckled. “You’ll learn.”

The sound of boots echoed up the stairwell, following by a Constable, sweating under his cap and uniform and yellow jacket.

“You must be the lucky fellow who called us in,” said the Inspector standing up. “DI Todd Turner.” He flashed a warrant card. “And he’s DS Price.” He indicated the other man still down on the steps. The squatting man nodded.

“Constable Burns,” said the uniformed man. “Sorry, I wasn’t up here. Just had to go get some fresh air, y’know.”

Nobody shook hands, the detectives were wearing latex gloves.

“Well, it’s not like he’s going anywhere fast is it?” said Turner.

“Even so…” said the other. He knew he really should have stayed outside the room to preserve what was considered a crime scene until further notice.

“Forget it,” said the Inspector. “We’re gonna need some air too soon, or someone’ll be bringing oxygen tanks up all these stairs…” He waved his hand, and then took a small notebook from an inside pocket. “It was you who opened the door?”

“To the bedroom, yes,” said the Constable. “For the flat, the littl’un answered when I knocked.” He jerked his thumb towards the room. Through the door, they could see a spindly child hunched over a low table, busy writing or drawing with a bright yellow ballpoint.

“You didn’t get him out?” DI Todd wanted to know.

“He won’t budge. Doesn’t seem to hear you,” said the other. “Waiting for Social Services to come and see whether they can get through to him. Seems they already know him.”

“You should warn ‘em first if you have to bring them up here. ‘Bout the smell.” He scribbled in the notepad. “And the deceased?”

“Probably the father. They lived alone here. That’s about all I’ve got out of the neighbours for the moment.”

“And he’s been living with this stench all this time? He must have known something was up, no?”

“Don’t ask me,” said the Constable. “But I can tell you that the room was locked from the inside. A Yale lock. Curious choice for a bedroom, innit? The key’s still in place. Didn’t touch anything, right.”

He had kicked the door open, splintering the frame and destroying whatever evidence might have been there. But it was understandable. Only human. From the smell when you got inside the flat you expected to find half a dozen bodies behind the door.

“But it’s the kid’s room, no?” asked DS Price. He vaguely remembered seeing brightly coloured posters on the walls, through the haze that had formed in front of his eyes. “So why was he in there? You don’t think the kid… He couldn’t, could he?”

All three looked at each other, then at the kneeling child absorbed in his activities. No, it didn’t seem possible.

The radio hanging from Constable Burns shoulder hissed with a noise like a deep sighing. He lifted it towards his ear.

“Mr B, there’s a woman from Social Services—” A crackle interrupted the message, “— I’m sending her up. Over.”

The Constable looked at the DI who nodded back.

“OK Pete, send her on up.” He went to drop the radio into place, then pulled it back towards his mouth. “Oh, and Pete. Don’t forget to warn her about the stink.”

“Will do, Mr B. Pathologist just arriving too. Maybe someone can give her a mask. Out.”

“C’mon son,” said DI Turner, turning to the Detective Sergeant. “Think you can pull yourself together long enough for another dekko before we get thrown out?”

The younger man nodded, stood and brushed down the back of his trousers.

DI Turner replaced his notebook in his jacket, then slipped a hand into a pocket and dropped the small tub of Vicks into DS Price’s hands.

“That’ll help a bit,” he said. Seeing the Constable staring he added. “Tricks of the trade, PC Burns. First thing you’ll need if you ever plump for CID…”

Back inside the flat, a handkerchief over his nose, DI Turner stopped to look around. First impressions. Don’t stop to think. Just let your mind wander round the place and take things in.

A couple of armchairs, a sofa with a pillow and a folded blanket stacked at the end, a buffet against the wall and few cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, the low table where the kid was busy scribbling…

The armchairs didn’t match, but it wasn’t your usual disposable junk, more probably second-hand. But what was missing? A woman’s touch, he thought. Thinking of home and the ridiculous souvenirs and odds and ends his wife was always lining up on the dresser and shelves in the kitchen. Things plunked around the place ‘to decorate’.

Now he was looking for things that weren’t there, he saw things differently: no telly for a start. Most living rooms seemed to be built around the idiot box, but here there was nothing. The chairs circled the table, there was no obvious place were a TV would fit in. It was unusual, he thought, but about the only legal way to get out of paying the license fee.

No pictures, no photos. That was another thing missing. Woman were always wanting to put up pictures and framed photos of Aunty Whatnot.

So no telly, no ornaments, no pictures. No wife or mum or girlfriend then. Father and son lived here alone. He’d check the bathroom later to be absolutely sure. Bathrooms were always a giveaway.

He looked around again. What else was he missing?

No bookcase. No books. Not even the phonebook as far as he could see. No magazines.

In fact, no reading matter except the newspaper that the kid was scribbling on.

He walked over to the table and looked at the small kid. The boy looked up briefly, eyes flashing. For a moment he got the image of some small wild animal, cornered. Then the boy resumed his scribbles. He was slowly filling the border at the bottom of the page with loops and zigzags, like smoke circling. Looking at the discarded sheets on the floor and the table, it appeared he stopped once he’d completely filled this area, and moved on to the next page. It obviously kept him occupied…

DI Turner wondered if he should open the window that looked out over the Estate, but forensics would only complain. He sniffed. His nostrils still burned a little.

He crouched down opposite the boy, studying him. He noticed that he blinked incessantly as he concentrated on his drawing, his scribbling. And only at the bottom of the pages.

Was this some disorder? Some obsession? Some way of dealing with the corpse in the next room?

He realised that the boy was blocking him out too. He’d lost the initiative. He should have started speaking before coming down to the kid’s level. Outfoxed by a — how old was he? Can’t be more than eight or nine. Now it was going to be more difficult to ask questions…

“You alright, son?” he asked, gently but firmly. “You’ve been fending for yourself for a while now, haven’t you?”

That was true. Had someone been been caring for him? Did someone else know about the death? The kid’s clothes looked reasonably clean, not like he’d been wearing them for weeks on end.

“Is that your Dad in there?” he asked. “How long has he been in the bedroom like that?”

The boy stopped, looked across the table at him, still blinking.

“Me Dad’s in me bedroom,” he said flatly. He tapped the ballpoint on the paper, three staccato beats. Then bent his head back to the paper and his colouring.

“How long has he been in there?” he insisted a little.

The boy stopped and blinked.

“He ain’t coming out.”

“We’ll be taking him away.” He paused. “To the hospital,” he added. A white lie, he hoped.

“Nah. He’s gone. He ain’t coming back.”

Tread carefully.

“Can you tell me why that is?”

The boy stopped scribbling and started rocking on his heels, forwards and backwards. He said nothing.

“Why is your father in the bedroom son?”

“Shut your mouth, right!” the boy shouted. “Only babies are scared of the dark! Shut your snivelling or I’ll give you something to cry about, I will!” His face was red, his eyes bulged out. At least, he’d stopped blinking. “Let up will ya! Let me get some sleep!” He started blinking and swaying again. “Me Dad’s asleep in me bedroom…” And he gave a short dry laugh, like a hiccough.

“OK, kid,” said DI Turner, getting up. “It’ll all be alright.”

He had put out a hand to tap the boy on the shoulder, but he was scribbling again, obliviously, lost in his own world.

At the door, the uniformed Constable coughed. He was standing in the doorway, next to a red-headed woman in a lime green trouser suit. She was screwing her face up against the stench. DI Turner walked over.

“Ms Fields,” the Constable said. “Social Services.”

DI Turner nodded and held his gloved hands wide.

“Can’t really shake hands,” he said. “Not with these things on.”

“I told her she’d probably have to wait outside,” the Constable volunteered. “Until the pathologist has finished, and maybe SOCO too.”

“Right,” he acknowledged. Then turning to the woman. “That was quick, wasn’t it?”

“I wasn’t far,” she said. “And besides, we already know Terry…”

She wrinkled her nose as she spoke.

He ushered them out of the doorway, and, he hoped, out of earshot.

“That’s the kid, I’m taking it?”

She nodded.

“How much can you tell me?” he asked.

“Just the basics. Sorry,” she gave a half smile. “Confidentiality and everything. You know how it goes…”

He nodded. Papers would have to be sent. Through the correct channels. And then they’d still probably refuse to say anything. To protect the kid.

“What age would you give Terry, Inspector? It is Inspector, isn’t it?” she started.

“Sorry, Ms Fields,” he said. “Detective Inspector Turner. Todd Turner. And to answer your question… He looks about eight, perhaps nine? But—” He held up a finger. “If you’re asking the question, then that’s probably not the right answer. Am I on the right track? So, ten perhaps?”

“You are on the right track,” she said with that curious half smile again. “He’s nearly thirteen.”

DI Turner let out a low sigh. Then repeated it as he inhaled. He coughed.

“The smell’s not bothering you?” he asked.

“A little,” she admitted. She reached into the bag she had over her shoulder. “Your colleague said to return this to you.” She handed over the small tub of Vicks rub. “And it does help. Thanks,” she added.

“So what can you tell me about Terry then?” said the Inspector.

“Oh yes. Just what you could find out by asking around, I suppose… Abusive father, I’m afraid. And no one else to look after him. He was taken into care at one point, but the father won an appeal and took him back. So we keep a close eye on them. Regular visits. And irregular ones too. Quite sincerely, he seemed to have calmed down, the father I mean. It’s been over a year we found any signs of physical problems…”

DI Turner lifted his eyebrows.

“Bumps, breaks, bruises… The father always claimed that Terry was difficult and turbulent, fragile and always falling over. Without witnesses, and the child taking care to never contradict his father, it’s all impossible to prove…”

He nodded. “And..?” he started.

“What do we think? Strictly off the record, it appears a pretty typical case of child abuse. On the record, we play by the book and just drop in unannounced so that he understands we’re keeping him on a tight leash.” She paused and brushed a lock of hair that had fallen from where it had been pinned back. “It seems to be working… Or seemed,” she added in a low voice. Then, making eye contact she said, “And what can you tell me?”

He shook his head.

“For the moment, nothing that you can’t see for yourself. As you might guess, the neighbours complained about the smell. The kid — Terry? — opened the door to Constable Burns here. He found the father — or at this stage we believe it’s the father — in the bedroom. And he appears to be very dead. That’s about it… One thing though. We need to find out when someone last saw the father alive. Of you’ve got a date for a last visit, that’ll give us a start narrowing things down…”

“I can let you know when I get back to the office. Will that do?” she asked. She looked over at the boy.

He nodded, and passed over a business card.

“Thanks.”

“One thing…” she started. “Do you..? Was it Terry?”

“I was rather hoping you could help us with that. It doesn’t look like it, but…” He shrugged.

“I know what you mean. He’s not very talkative at the best of times. And he can get quite obsessed by moments. Autistic like. He’s not though, by the way. Not clinically. He just seems to shut himself away. A sort of protection.”

“I see…” said DI Turner, hoping that he did. He heard a bustle of noise from down below. The pathologist had finished suiting up and was arriving up the stairs. “Perhaps you’d better help me get him out of here? You’re probably better at that sort of thing?”

She gave him a sharp look.

“Because I’m a woman, DI Turner?”

“Because you know him.” He sighed. “I’ve had no luck communicating.”

“And you don’t think..?” Her voice trailed off.

“That he’s got something to do with it? No, not really. Constable Burns here says the bedroom was shut from the inside—”

“Key was in the lock and all,” the Constable volunteered.

“Thank you, Constable,” DI Turner sighed. “It’ll probably come down to suicide, then. But I would like to speak with Terry. If you can make contact.”

He held out his palms, in conciliation.

“I’ll do my best,” she said, and made to move to the door.

“I have no doubt Ms Fields.” He followed her. “Oh!” he said. He pulled a pair of white rubbery gloves from a packet in his pocket. “You’ll be needing these. Sorry.”

The boy was still scribbling.

As they approached the table, two men in baggy white suits, each carrying a solid rectangular box, appeared in the doorway.

“Just follow the smell!” called DI Turner. Then “Oops!” as he remembered the boy. But the child continued his drawing, unperturbed except for his blinking.

“Terry, Terry.. It’s Cathy,” said the woman. She knelt down next to him, and DI Turner twigged why she preferred a trouser suit for her work.

“Hello Cathy,” said the boy slowly, still engrossed in the clouds of smoke billowing in the borders of his newspaper. She reached out a hand, placing it over his, stilling it. The scribbling stopped. He looked up with empty eyes, and blicked at her.

“Cathy. Me Dad’s gone.”

“Yes, Terry, he is. But it’s alright if you feel funny about it…”

“Funny ha-ha, or funny strange, Cathy?”

“Funny strange, Terry.”

The boy looked up. White flashes pilled from the bedroom like lightning from a distant storm as the men started recording the room as it had had been found.

“No. I don’t feel funny strange Cathy. Can I finish me drawing now?”

The Social Worker was still holding his hand.

“You can finish it later, Terry. For now, I think you’d better come with me.” She darted a look up at the Inspector standing over them.

The boy considered her suggestion.

“Nah, I’d better finish it now so I can give it to him.”

“Give it to who, Terry?” She glanced at DI Turner, who nodded, encouraging her on. “Was there someone else here?”

“He’s in me bedroom,” said the boy, flatly.

“In your bedroom, Terry?”

“I don’t know his name, so I draws him. So he can see what he looks like.” He lowered his voice. “He’s me friend. He looks after me.”

“You mean your Dad, Terry? He’s in your bedroom, isn’t he?”

“Nah! Me Dad’s gone now.”

A draft like a gust blew through the flat. The bedroom door slammed. There was a muffled cry from the room.

“He doesn’t like people he doesn’t know,” said the boy.

“Who?”

“Who’s playing games?” came a shout from the bedroom, as if in echo. “We’re trying to work in here!”

DI Turner walked over and pushed at the door. It was stuck solid. It seemed sealed with darkness through the splintered wood and paint.

“You can switch the light on,” said the boy. “He doesn’t like that.”

There was a shout of what sounded like ‘Gerrof!’, and muffled shamblings from the closed room.

“Switch the light on!” called DI Turner through the door. He pushed and pulled at the door handle.

“Where is it then, wise guy?” came a voice.

“Where’s the light switch, Terry?”

He turned to the boy who was now rocking backwards and forwards at the table.

“Terry?” said the Social Worker softly, putting her hand on his shoulder to try and calm him.

“He’s just playing,” said the boy. “He gets lonely too.”

“Terry!” she said, a little more sharply.

“It’s just there. Right by ‘is hand.” The boy pointed.

On the wall, next to the door was a light switch. DI Turner had assumed it was for the living room. He clicked it on, and the door opened.

“Me Dad moved it. Shuts me in the dark when I’m a bad boy.”

The white figures erupted from the bedroom.

“What was that stupid trick?” the first one barked, redfaced, his mask askew. “Who’s buggering around like that?”

DI Turner stepped back, hands outstretched.

“No one,” he said. “No one here did anything. We were just trying to open the door.”

“He just wants to get to know you,” murmured the boy from the table.

“God knows I’ve seen my share of stuff, but that was damn creepy,” said the other. “Like if someone was in there, pressing in on me…”

DI Turner moved over and poked his head round the door. The room was bathed in white light from above, like an overexposed photo. There were no windows, he noted. In the cold hard light pressing down from above it was as if there were no shadows anywhere. The livid flesh of the swollen body lying on the bed glowed white, leaving the impression of an aureole round the head and hands.

The head was propped up on the pillow, and the face seemed frozen in an expression, as if he was straining, or screaming. Strange that, he thought, rigor mortis only works for a time after death. He must have been here a lot longer than that. After that the cadavre should have lost its expression as the flesh softened and started to decay. All in all, the effect did give you the creeps, the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled.

Still standing outside the door, he got down on his knees. All the shadows in the room seemed to have collected under the back. It was pitch black and seething down there.

The light’s playing tricks with my eyes, he thought.

And he remembered the kid’s drawings, the scribbles curving, writhing, flowing. And all filling just the bottom of the page. Like the shadows under the bed.

Stiffly, he pulled himself up.

“Door must be wonky,” he said. “Although I’d have sworn Constable Burns had done the lock in.” Turning to the pathologist and his assistant, he said, “If I were you, I’d block it with a chair or something.” He moved away. “Gentlemen,” he said, motioning the two white clad figures back to the bedroom. He turned his attention back to the boy.

“What is it under the bed?” he asked.

Terry looked up, startled. He stopped blinking for at least thirty seconds.

“Nuffin’,” he said. “Dad says it don’t exist. Gonna show me, he was. I told him no, but ‘e didn’t listen.” He blinked in salves. “Now ‘e’s gone.”

DI Turner got the impression that the boy wasn’t talking just about his father.

“Come on Terry,” the Social Worker said, standing up and smoothing out the creases in her trousers. “I bet you’re peckish. Let’s go and get something to eat…”

She took the boy by the hand. Still clutching at his ballpoint he stood up. She lead him round the table, chattering, filling the empty space as she did.

“Have you got an anorak or something? That’s it. Not like you need one with this heat, but it’ll get cooler later. And your school bag, we’d better take that. Don’t worry, we can come back for the rest later..”

Suddenly the boy pulled himself out of her grip, and darted over to the bedroom door.

DI Turner looked over. The small boy seemed like a puppy, with oversized hands and feet as he stopped outside the door. He paused. Then he lifted a hand and waved.

“Bye,” he said, before turning away.

From where he was standing, DI Turner could see that it wasn’t the figure lying on the bed he had been speaking to.

He shivered.

What sort of life was it, he wondered, when the only person who really cares for you is the monster under the bed?

THE END

There we go. A quick, nice story. I think I’ve always liked monsters under the bed. Probably something to do with Calvin and Hobbes. Sorry, by the way, if the Police Procedure is a bit off, I didn’t have time to research thoroughly.

See you next week.

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