Monday, September 2, 2013
Frank
Frank was an idiot. A brand spanking new Triumph Bonneville motorcycle straight off the boat from England, and he'd already rebored the carburetter and changed out the sprocket when I saw him.
'It's gonna end in tears Franky boy,' I said. All for a lousy twenty extra miles per hour. He was a speed demon. A real seat of the pants guy, made of the right stuff. That's why when he came back from the Jupiter 59 Mission, I knew it was big. A serious, serious businesss. And Frank was never gonna be the same.
****
We arrived at Edwards airforce base in March of nineteen fifty seven and there we all met for the first time. Me, Gordon, Scottie Carpenter, Neil, Bob and Frank. We were all test pilots, and came from the services as engineers. Frank and I worked together with the NASA guys on the development of the landing systems for Jupiter and after some frustrating problems we finally managed to crack it in the summer of the following year.
It's scary to think what we were working with then, the kind of hardware we relied on. Hell, there's more technology in my cellphone than what we used to put Neil on the moon, and Jupiter was ten years earlier.
Over the months, we all the became a pretty tight team though Bob left in the autumn and we never really knew why. He said he'd been seconded for some secret military mission, hush hush kinda thing. Gordy said it was Cuba but anyway he was replaced by Ed Irving.
We knew it would be one of us. I knew it would be Frank, and sure enough Christmas came early for him that year when in November Mr Glennan called to tell Frank he was going be the first man into space.
I couldn't say I wasn't a little disappointed. I suppose we all were really but Frank was the right choice and we all knew it.
There was a certain relief that came with the news of Frank's appointment and only when I knew the call had finally come did I realise I'd been waiting for it myself.
Gloria knew, she said for the past eighteen months when I was home, I wouldn't stray more than a few feet from the kitchen, from the telephone. It must have been a big deal for her too. She lived every day with the same danger as me and whilst I didn't say it, I knew that hurtling fifty miles above the Mojave desert in an X-15 at three and a half thousand miles an hour was different from right up there, in the dark, the unknown. She wouldn't see me at the end of a days work or get the Hi honey, I'm safe and well call I made after the routine test flights that's for sure. It would be a black car and two sombre men in regalia at the door reminding her of the amazing sacrifice I had made for my country.
Still it was down to Frank now, for him and his loved ones and for that at least, as funny as it sounds, I was glad it wasn't me.
The night of the call was a big celebration. We already had a reputation as hell raisers which in part was true it was fair to say, but we worked hard and needed to let off a little steam now and then.
Our little band had become celebrities. Joe public had a massive appetite for the 'Space Race,' and we received a lot of attention, not all good but it culminated in a sweet deal that saw access to us and our stories sold for a quarter of million dollars to Life magazine. Split between us it sure made the long days shorter and well, it was something nice for the girls. We spent money on the house and for Gloria, a whole new wardrobe. She said she felt like a movie star. It made her happy and I was glad.
Frank bought a motorcycle.
After the excitement about Frank died down it was back to the grind and even more intense training. This time against a deadline set by NASA. Two of us, me and Scottie, trained side by side with Frank.
At the end of April, Frank began to get really nervous. He confided in me quite a bit and I guess I could say I knew the real Frank, the man behind the bravado, the sleek hair and dangerous twinkle in his eye. Frank wasn't tall but he was magnetic, so the moment he walked into a room, everyone turned to hear what he might say. One night, over a couple of beers in the base bar Frank told me he was scared. I told him there wasn't a man on the planet, or any other planet for that matter, that wouldn't be frightened. We didn't talk percentages but the chances of him not coming back, or of not even making it out of the atmosphere alive were finely balanced. We weren't kidding ourselves, but what a thing to be the first. The first human into space, and beating the ruskies and all.
It was that conversation that I kept going back to after he came back. We'd spent a good couple of hours discussing every stage of the launch, boost and rentry with the aim of finding something that had been missed, a little detail that could be ironed out and would give Frank just a couple more ounzes of confidence. 'You're gonna be a hero Frankie,' I said. 'Come June, every man, woman and child's gonna be waving a flag for you.' He'd smiled I remember, and nodded his head just a little as he rolled the thought around.
If it was going to happen, it would be mechanical failure that got him, so once the tests and checks had been done and redone it would be in the lap of the gods. I was angry when he came back. They told us about the research into the human immune system in microgavity conditions and how Frank would have been highly susceptible to bacteria either in his environment or dormant inside his body. Whilst the training was designed to prepare us for the conditions we would encounter, as best they could be understood from earth, no one could know what really would happen to our bodies.
Some said we weren't meant to travel into space and that we inhabitat this planet for a reason. There were quite a few dissenters, those who weren't waving a flag on launch day, and when Frank came back I wanted them to know the truth but all they got was validation when it was announced that Frank had been rushed to the Holy Cross Centre for Disease Control.
They let me visit a couple of times and we spoke on the telephone through a plate glass wall. Two government agents were posted outside the door to his room and I guessed this was to keep any press at bay. Frank was big news.
He was hooked up to a dozen or so monitors and when he spoke, he was different, slow, as if something wasn't working right in his brain. They had told me strictly not to ask him any questions about the flight but I was burning to know. He said he hadn't seen anyone else really but that men in suits came daily and asked him a lot of questions. They didn't know what was wrong with him. When I asked the doctors, they answered curtly as if making Frank better wasn't a priority.
When I learned the truth, things like that made sense. I was approached by NASA shortly after Frank came back. They wanted me to head the next mission and launch date was set for less than six months. When I was called to the White House for the mission briefing, I knew something was happening. Frank wasn't ill and what they told me changed everything.
In a universe so unexplained, unknown and unexplored, man will always be overwhelmed by curiosity and his desire for knowledge will know no bounds. What we didn't know back then as we raced so hard to put man into space, was that we were already up there. The human species inhabited space and they'd been waiting for Frank for two thousand years.
I came to Mars in nineteen sixty four on board a transporter ship built by the first humans. I've been here with them now for forty eight years. It's taken that long for us, well the second humans, to get up to speed with the technology that had been developed since the first humans left the planet in a.d. thirty two but now the whole species live as one despite the obvious differences.
When they released Frank from Holy Cross he found a very large sum of money in his bank account. We laughed but knew they could have taken more permanent action to stop him talking rather that pumping him full of tranquilizers. He never did tell anyone and things came to light in the natural order of things, mainly when there was money to be made in leaving earth once again.
Frank died three years after Project Jupiter in the Mojave desert. A blowout on his motorcycle at one hundred and thirty eight miles an hour. They gave him a hero's send off, tickertape in Times Square kinda deal. The journey he took will remain in history for many reasons.
He may not have been the first man into space but he was my friend and I miss him.
***
By Darren Seeley
Directive 2.51
Do not get emotionally attached to patients. The sad fact was, sometimes they died.
The rule made a lot of sense and Daniel had always thought health professionals were foolish to ever choose to get emotionally attached to their patients. That was until he was grinning at his patient as he breathed the stale tasting air that circulated through his hazmat suit and realised choice didn’t come into it. Against his will he was well and truly emotionally attached. Like the rest of America he was fascinated by this man, this hero that had gone where no other man had. From the first moment he’d met him, almost a year previous, he’d been in awe of him. Now he was desperate to help him.
“Morning Frank, how are you feeling?” Daniel asked as he skim read the chart from the end of the hospital bed. Daniel had known Frank as a handsome man with an easy charm, the charm was still there but his face and neck were obscured by inflamed patches of skin with sporadic blisters and flakes that made him hard to look at.
“Itchy.” Frank answered with a rueful grin.
Daniel managed not to grimace as a dry patch of skin on his friends face split and thick plasma leaked out. Instead he swept his eyes to the small TV set and watched Lucy yelling comically at Ricky. The TV was the only piece of non-medical equipment in the room and he’d bought it from his home to entertain his chronically bored friend. Every other surface was clear as Get Well Soon cards and flowers were not permitted within the room, instead these offerings to the astronaut lined the perimeter that had been set up at the hospital entrance and there were thousands of them.
“You’re due another application of cream in twenty minutes, I’m sure that will help.” When he looked away from the TV he saw that Frank was staring at him.
“Do you really have to wear that thing around me? You don’t honestly think I’ve been infected by some space germs do you?”
“Yes I do and no I don’t. You appear to just have a severe case of eczema. What I can’t explain is why the treatment is not clearing it up.”
“I’m telling you Doc, it was the same when I was a kid. My Mum slathered me with cream for months; nothing. Then my Dad took us on a holiday to the coast and after a few days of playing in the surf my skin cleared up.”
Daniel could see that the salt water could have an exfoliating affect so he scribbled instructions for the assistant that had been security cleared to assist him with the astronauts care. “I’ll have a salt bath arranged for you.”
Frank grinned and more clear liquid oozed down his face. “Not quite the same as a surf beach is it Doc?”
“That salt bath is about as close as you are going to get right now.”
“You could sneak me out under cover of darkness.” Frank teased.
Daniel fixed him with an un-amused look.
“Alright, alright. But any chance of getting these off?” Frank raised his taped up hands. “I feel like a kid that can’t be trusted not to scratch his measles.”
Daniel caught one of his raised hands and worked the blood pressure belt up his arm. “Kids can’t be trusted not to scratch their measles and neither, my friend, can you.”
Frank rolled his eyes as Daniel inflated the cuff and then released it as he listened to his stethoscope.
“Are you still experiencing hunger?”
“Yes, I’m starving. This hospital’s food doesn’t cut the mustard.”
“Never had any complaints before.” Daniel consulted the chart again. “You ate two hours ago, how could you still be hungry?”
“Doc, you were the one that put me on that training regime that had me eating six times a day, guess my body is just used to that routine.”
“Okay.” Daniel clipped the chart back on the end of the bed. “I’ll see if I can’t scare you up a protein shake.”
“Steak would be better.”
Daniel laughed. “In your dreams.”
Behind him Frank groaned dramatically. “Doc, you’re killing me!”
19th June 1959 – Daniel was studying the latest skin scrapings from Frank under a microscope when two men in business suits burst into the lab without knocking. The first man, Jeremy Faulkner, he knew as the Director of NASA, a man he had worked with for years. The second he knew only from the T.V, he was President Eisenhower’s VP, Richard Nixon.
“Gentlemen?” Daniel queried with a frown.
“Dan, we have a problem.” Jeremy said as he closed the door and pulled at the tight knot of his tie. He was clearly unnerved by the man at his side.
“”A problem?” Richard interrupted. “Men, this is more than a problem, this is a catastrophe!” He shook his head as he spoke and Daniel was fascinated by the drooping jowls of his face that struggled to keep up with the action.
“Doctor you are out of time.” The VP asserted.
“I beg your pardon?” Daniel frowned and looked at Jeremy for clarification.
“It’s the public Dan, they want to know what’s happened to Frank – they are demanding to know.”
“And what do you think the public’s reaction is going to be when they see him? His skin is bright red and spontaneously splits? Do you think that is going to allay the nation’s fears of alien interaction? The look of eczema would be alarming to anyone who’d not seen the condition before but a case as severe as Frank’s? Even I’m finding it hard to look at him.” Daniel challenged.
“I agree with you completely.” Richard said with a nod as Jeremy tugged harder at his tie as though he couldn’t get enough air. He also was looking everywhere in the room except for at Daniel.
“What am I missing here?”
Jeremy started speaking in a rush but Nixon cut him off with a wave of his hand. His dark eyes fixed onto Daniels and for almost a minute the only sounds that could be heard in the room were their breathing and the steady humming of the refrigerator filled with blood samples.
“Doctor, I don’t need to tell you how important this race to space is do I? This whole nation wants, no damn it, they need us to win this race and the Republican’s will be the government to deliver that dream for them. Next year is an election year and this recession is already killing us – we need the public behind us on this or I’ll lose out to the Democrats. I need to produce a healthy Frank Bowman to the public to restore their faith in us and our commitment to this race.”
Daniel found himself losing patience with the man. “With all due respect Vice President Nixon, I am doing my best with Frank but he is not ready to meet the public. I’m sorry if that is hurting your campaign for presidency.”
Nixon narrowed his eyes at him but it was Jeremy that spoke. “Dan, we have a solution.” Still Jeremy couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “And it’s to employ Directive 2.51.”
Daniel gave a sigh of impatience. “Sorry Jeremy but I’m not fluent in NASA’s directives. Just tell me straight.”
Jeremy blew air between his teeth and then gave one final tug on his tie. “We are going to use Franks body double to appease the public.”
“His what?”
Nixon breathed out impatiently through his nose while Jeremy raised his hands in a placating manner towards Daniel. “With the importance of this mission being so great it was decided that should anything happen to Frank his double would step in to face the public.”
Daniel was aghast. “What?”
“Did you think Frank was chosen for his skill alone?” Jeremy laughed humourlessly. “We matched the facial features of the astronaut potentials to members of the Secret Service – Frank and his double were the closest. With Frank having no family and next to no close relationships, he was the perfect choice.”
Daniel leaned heavily back on the lab bench he’d been working on. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So Frank Bowman risked his life for this country and now some other guy gets to face the public and get all the glory while we wait for Frank to recover?”
Nixon fixed him with that look again. “Doctor, I don’t think you understand. Frank is now a risk to National Security. The meteor dust found on the hull of the spaceship would suggest he has been exposed to some contaminant and we cannot risk that contaminate infecting others.”
“Contaminant? He has eczema for God’s sake!”
“Doctor, your country thanks you for your efforts but we’ll take it from here.” Richard nodded curtly and left the room. Jeremy went to follow but Daniel grabbed him by the arm.
“What is he going to do to Frank?”
“You know what has to happen Dan. He could be contagious.”
Daniel wasn’t a violent man but he squeezed Jeremy’s arm harder. “If that were true, you would be able to look me in the eyes. Why is this the first I’m hearing about this meteor dust? I’ve done numerous studies on Frank and have been telling you the Hazmat suits were unnecessary. Are you really going to let them kill Frank just so that asshole can get elected next year?”
“Dan I have no control over this, we both have to go along with it. You’ve signed documents that agree with all directives put in place by NASA and the US government, if you make a fuss they’ll be forced to deal with you.” Jeremy yanked his arm free and strode to the door. “Start destroying the files on Frank.”
Daniel spun and smashed his fist against the lab table. The microscope toppled to the side and Frank’s perfectly normal skin sample fell to the floor.
20th June 1959 – Frank woke as Daniel was tearing off the tapings around his hands.
“What’s going on Doc?” He asked groggily as he raised his head off the bed. “Where’s your hazmat suit?”
“We’re going to the coast like you wanted.” Daniel tore away the last of the taping and pulled the bed sheet free. “Come on.”
“Doc, what’s going on?” Frank asked as he followed Daniel to the door, when Daniel turned he noticed new splits on Franks face.
“They’re going to kill you; they think something is wrong with you.”
Frank blinked in surprise and shook his head. “Is there something wrong with me?”
Daniel gave a fleeting smile. “Do you think I would be busting you out of here if there was?”
“Good point.”
“Follow me and stay quiet.”
Daniel led them along a darkened corridor. The entire ward had been sealed off for Frank and the silence that surrounded them made their footsteps seem inordinately loud. Once they reached the end of the corridor Daniel paused. Beyond the door was a short walk to the entrance of the private car park but they would have to pass the dispensary and the dispensary was very rarely unattended, even at 3am.
“Frank, I want you to walk beside me, act like everything’s normal. If anyone tries to stop us you let me do the talking – just stay quiet.”
“Roger that.”
They entered the main part of the hospital and walked briskly towards the car park door. As they approached the dispensary a nurse Daniel vaguely recognised left the office carrying a tray. She gasped when she saw Frank but the look of revulsion on her face suggested the reaction had nothing to do with her recognition of the astronaut. As she gasped Frank’s stomach gave off an ungodly growl that made the nurse’s step falter. Frank slowed in reaction and Daniel had to grasp his arm and speed him along. Frank grunted lightly and under Daniel’s hand he felt liquid seep into the sleeve of the hospital gown where he must have torn the skin.
“What the hell was that noise?” Daniel whispered as they put distance between themselves and the nurse.
“I’m hungry.”
They made the door to the car park un-accosted but as they passed through it Daniel noticed the nurse was still standing in the corridor staring at them. He hurried them through and shut the door.
“Almost there. There’s a private exit that leads around the back and down past the river for a couple of miles and then out onto the highway. We can sneak out and no one will know we are gone until it’s too late.”
Again Frank’s stomach growled, even louder than before.
Daniel thought he may have a chocolate bar in the glove box so he rushed forward to unlock the car but as he pulled the door open two moist hands fastened to the sides of his head. Before he could react his neck was jerked to the side savagely and his limp body fell to the ground.
Frank looked down at the lifeless body at his feet and knew he should be feeling something. He’d been friends with Daniel and now, not only was he dead, but he had died by his hands. Still he felt nothing except for the new strength that flowed through his limbs and the hunger.
The hunger wasn’t new, it had been with him since he’d first woken at the hospital and it was unrelenting. Nothing seemed to appease it, the more he ate, the more his body demanded. Another growl sounded from his stomach and with it a came a savage stomach cramp.
Frank knelt on the ground beside his friend’s body and pulled the man’s forearm to his mouth. The muscle was tough and very hard to bite through but the reward was worth the effort.
By Dayv Metcalfe
Frank's Tank
The World was ravenously ready to watch the drama. To hear the astronaut's first words after he was collected from a seething ocean. To watch open mouthed as Frank Bowman told them what it was like to look back at them, all together. Instead, as the recovery craft got close to the bobbing capsule, and Frank Bowman emerged, he tried to shout something as he waved his arms madly. The cameras stopped rolling. Pre prepared newspaper headlines, suppose to be full of quotes, data and feelings, were instead full of what? Where, and whys? Newly formed NASA (with a hovering military) said there had been a health problem, and that Frank had been rushed to hospital. One paper reported that he had gone to The Holy Cross, disease control, but quickly corrected the story, and suggested he had a collapsed lung.
A week passed. No Frank Bowman. Where was the hero, the people needed him, he had been built up so much, they positively desired him. People were getting twitchy. Eager for their man and the new stories he could tell. What exactly was wrong? He remained secluded in what had become known as 'Frank's Tank', rumours abounded, some humorous: -
"He has gone on holiday!"
"He has defected to the Reds!"
Some thought provoking:-
"He met God."
"He has seen us all at once and hates us."
Some ideas about his absenteeism were cleverly creative, and one in particular made Frank spit his pea and ham soup out.
"He hasn't been in space at all, he has been in a submarine and when he appeared in that capsule, he felt guilty and tried to tell us."
By Andy Parker
A week passed. No Frank Bowman. Where was the hero, the people needed him, he had been built up so much, they positively desired him. People were getting twitchy. Eager for their man and the new stories he could tell. What exactly was wrong? He remained secluded in what had become known as 'Frank's Tank', rumours abounded, some humorous: -
"He has gone on holiday!"
"He has defected to the Reds!"
Some thought provoking:-
"He met God."
"He has seen us all at once and hates us."
Some ideas about his absenteeism were cleverly creative, and one in particular made Frank spit his pea and ham soup out.
"He hasn't been in space at all, he has been in a submarine and when he appeared in that capsule, he felt guilty and tried to tell us."
By Andy Parker
Monday, July 29, 2013
Story Idea 8
Headline - 7th June 1959: Frank Bowman, the first man in space, splashed down at 3pm today!
Concerns were raised when Frank was rushed into Holy Cross Center for Disease Control....
AM
Concerns were raised when Frank was rushed into Holy Cross Center for Disease Control....
The story should be no more than 4000 words.
Deadline: 30th August 2013
AM
The Security System
Kim had never identified with the despair of a fictional character quite the way she did as she beheld the litter ridden streets of Tooting. She hadn’t exactly been anticipating the gold paved streets Dick Whittington had, but torn apart rubbish, apparently the result of desperate urban foxes, was not what she had been expecting at all. The first niggles of doubt had set in.
Some people migrated to pursue dreams or career, others to escape poor living conditions and some even to avoid political persecution. Kim had migrated because it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
She’d been single, her employment contract had ended and she’d just plain fancied a change. She already had some friends abroad so she’d bought a ticket with the majority of her savings and followed them.
London Town. The Big Smoke.
Kim was a positive soul so as she’d dragged her suitcase along the pavement, trying to avoid baked beans cans and torn chip packets, she’d repeated the mantra ‘everything is going to be okay’.
It had to be. Her ticket had been one way and her bank balance was woefully deficient of the funds it would take her to get back to the sunny shores of Auckland.
Her positivity was tested further when she’d discovered the warm welcome her ex-pat friends had promised apparently had an expiry date. After one week of dossing on their tiny couch, in their tiny flat, the cheerful smiles turned to queries of her move out date. As week two rolled into week three the queries were steadily getting frostier and Kim knew she was endangering her friendship status.
Kim’s mantra was getting worn out as her stress levels increased. She couldn’t find work and without work she couldn’t afford housing and if she alienated the few friends she had in the city, her future looked very bleak indeed.
Her niggles of doubt had turned into outright certainties. Moving abroad had been a bad fucking idea.
It was the morning she’d woken with a cramp in her back but was too despondent to move as she’d stared unseeingly at the ceiling, that she found the ad.
“Tooting flat - free rent. Only those morally deficient need apply.”
Kim had genuinely smiled as she’d read it, for the first time in a long time. She appreciated a good sense of humour so she’d used the last of her phone credit to make an appointment.
It was a terraced house and the very nature of a terraced house was that, bar the paint job, they were generally indistinguishable from the next. Still, as Kim paused on the approach of the second house in the row, she was filled with a sense of foreboding and wished she was about to enter any of the neighbouring houses instead. She was suddenly extremely conscious that she hadn’t told anyone where she was going.
Kim got her phone out of her bag and texted one of the friends she was staying with. She hit send; T-Mobile hit her back with a no credit message. She was on her own. She tapped her foot rapidly on the pathway, she could go back to the flat she was unwanted at or she could knock on the door that could potentially decrease her cortisol production.
She knocked on the door.
The man that answered could’ve been described as normal, in the same way the house in the terrace resembled the others, the same but not quite.
He was thrumming with anticipation that didn’t marry up with Kim’s expectation of a landlord. His thinning hair was plastered to his head with sweat and the temperature was sixteen degrees at best. Despite her disquiet, when he offered her entrance, Kim took it. She gripped her useless phone in her hand as some sort of talisman as he locked the door behind them with an emotion that could only be described as glee.
“So, you’re ad said free rent.” Kim said as she pressed herself against the hall wall to let him pass.
“You will never pay rent.” The odd landlord grinned and headed off down the hall. As a twenty three year old girl in a stranger’s home, she was concerned, as a homeless person with no other prospects; she was compelled to follow him into the house.
She found him standing in the centre of a large reception room, empty of all furnishings, and he was rubbing his hands together. It was at exactly that moment that Kim realised she was being the stupid girl from the horror movies everyone always shouted instructions at.
“You know what, I’ve changed my mind.” Kim said as she took a step backwards.
The man’s grin made her blood run cold. “Too late.”
Kim spun around to run, sure that she could make it to the front door before he could catch her. She stopped dead in her tracks. There was something in front of her blocking the door, a smoky black mass that she instinctively knew she didn’t want to run through. Before her eyes the mass solidified until it resembled hundreds of squirming eel-like creatures that were coated in a thick, black oily substance. Razor sharp teeth protruded from their mouths and the black substance dripped from the tips, if she looked down she knew she’d see the black goo pooling at her feet. They writhed against one another but regardless of the direction of their movement their angry red eyes remained on her. They were studying her.
Kim was frozen. In some distance part of her mind she knew she should be screaming or running or even fainting but it was as though she were observing the scene from outside her body with no control of her motor skills.
The thing closed the gap between them and she heard the man behind her squeal in delight. “I want to watch!” He exclaimed as he clapped his hands together.
The things attention immediately switched to him, the red eyed eels seeming to study him intently as they had done her. The sound of its voice was Kim’s undoing. It was an accumulation of all the most terrifying sounds she could’ve imagined and yet as it rasped its message she heard them all individually which heightened her terror.
“Corrrrupppptionnnnn.” The thing advanced towards the man as the sounds of skin rending, eyes popping, bones splintering still echoed in her head. She fainted dead away.
When she woke there was a shard of light bathing her face from a gap in the curtains. She was slow, groggy, wondering why she was laying on the floor when she recognised that she was in a stranger’s house. She saw her useless phone on the floor and jerked upright as memories rushed to the fore. A strangled cry escaped her as she saw the black thing drifting a few feet from her and behind it was a pool of congealing blood. The two walls near the pool had red splatter marks on them and the weird man was nowhere to be seen. She scooted backwards on her arse and the thing followed her. When her back hit the wall she screamed in desperation.
“Sssssttoppp.” Its voice made the word sound like teeth being filed, pins being driven under nails, toes being struck with a hammer and even though it made her need to scream more she stopped as though It’s will superseded hers.
The writhing, oily, eel-like creatures morphed back into the black smoky mass and drifted towards her. Every fibre of her being wanted to scream for all she was worth but apparently she was still under It’s will. The black mass drifted through her and a coldness seeped into her bones that chilled her to the point where she wondered if she would ever feel warm again, if she lived that long. Her eyes rolled up into her head as the thing communicated with her. Knowledge flashed in her minds eye and when the thing receded and drifted in front of her, she knew whole heartedly that It wouldn’t hurt her. It couldn’t hurt her. The certainty didn’t reduce her need to get gone.
As though to reassure her It confirmed her thoughts. “Sssssaaafe.”
She took comfort in the word despite the fact that it sounded like someone chewing jagged shards of glass. Comfort enough to inch her way up the wall to a standing position.
The thing floated before her as she made her way slowly out of the reception room and into the hall. It followed.
She wanted to run but was uncertain of the boundaries of the apparent truce they had. When her hand gripped the deadbolt she could’ve shouted for joy but instead she cringed as that horrific voice whispered through her mind.
“Sssssaaafe.”
She darted out the door and ran down the street, chancing a glance back to see if she was being followed. The door of the house was slowly closing and Kim thanked God she would never have to see the house or It again.
One week later Kim was back, standing on the doorstep with her suitcase by her side.
With each day that had passed Kim had felt compelled to return to the house and though she’d tried to fight it she had ultimately given in to the compulsion. That had happened at about the same time Kim had convinced herself that the thing in the house wasn’t evil. It wanted to eradicate evil and needed her help to do that and that was why she had been unharmed.
Only now that she was about to enter did she remember the fear she’d felt in It’s presence and began to doubt herself.
Kim stared at the front door, understanding her initial uneasiness now that she knew what lurked within. As she stared, mumbling her mantra under her breath, the door opened before her. If It had been on the threshold she didn’t think she could’ve entered but the way was clear so she dragged her case into the hall. Every hair on her body stood on end. She couldn’t see It but she knew it was there.
For what seemed like ten minutes she stood waiting but she remained alone in the entrance and eventually made her way into the reception room. The room was empty save for the congealed mass of blood coating the wooden floor and filling the room with a smell that made her want to gag. Kim pinched her nose closed as she surveyed the dark clots on the floor. She was surprised at the lack of flies feasting on the remains of the man but recognised that expectation may have been the blame of many a director’s artistic license. Unable to bear the mess any longer Kim went in search of cleaning products. In the kitchen she came across a large cupboard filled with tubs of baking soda and litres of white vinegar. On the inside of the cupboard door was a printed page from wikiHow with instructions on removing blood stains from hardwood flooring. The sheer volume of supplies in the cupboard coupled with the old stains she’d seen on the floor drove home just how many times It had done it’s thing.
Next to the cupboard was a wallet and in it she found the man’s driver’s license. The same name was on the pile of bills the wallet was sitting on, including a mortgage statement. The man It had killed was the owner of the house so he’d been providing victims for It for quite some time.
Kim scrubbed at the latest stain and wondered what had gotten the man killed. Had he grown addicted to providing victims for It and had therefore eradicated any goodness he’d had in himself?
Kim had no intention of falling into the same trap. She had a plan. For starters she wasn’t going to be staying around for long, once she had a job she would leave, and she intended to be much smarter with luring the victims. No Gumtree ads for her, she couldn’t be sure who would turn up on her doorstep, no she intended to let the victims come to It. Deserving ones.
The house wasn’t in a good area so Kim made sure that, every other day when she left the house, the front window was left wide open. Sure enough when she got back to the house a few hours later there would be a pool of blood from the latest would-be thief.
Despite the unsavoury job of having to do clean up, things were looking up for Kim. She still didn’t have a job but the house had proved to be a treasure trove. Not only had she found almost twenty thousand pounds sewn into the spare mattress, there had been multiple heirlooms and antiques she had sold for great profit.
She’d felt guilty when she’d come across recent letters from his son and realised she was effectively stealing his inheritance, but that feeling hadn’t lasted. She told herself she was saving the son from the knowledge of It. Plus, he would eventually get the inheritance of the house once she left and she was going to leave, just not yet. Sooner or later she would start looking for work again and then she would leave. For the time being she was happy to enjoy London with her ill gotten gains.
Kim returned home one afternoon after having her nails and hair done. When she entered the house she could hear a man’s strangled cries from the reception room.
She paused wondering if she should go back out and return once it was all over with but then she realised she had a chance to see how It did it’s thing. She often wondered as she scrubbed the floors what It did with the bones – did It eat them? Surely it wouldn’t hurt to have a peak?
“Honey, I’m home.” She called as she stepped into the room.
Oily black eels with blood red eyes were swarming over the thief. When he saw her his cries grew louder and more frantic. “Help me!”
Kim shrugged at him. “Sucks to be you, bro.”
The eels immediately ceased their writhing and every set of red eyes darted to her. It relinquished its hold on the man and he dropped to the ground.
“Corrrrupppptionnnnn.” It’s voice sounded like flesh blistering and boils erupting as It advanced.
Before Kim could run It was on her. The eels squeezed around her limbs mercilessly and where the black oil that dripped from their teeth landed on her skin it burned like acid. The pain that lanced into her as the first set of teeth dug into her flesh was agonizing. Hundreds more followed until she teetered on the brink of insanity with pain.
Her last thought as she was slowly eaten was that she should’ve left when she’d had the chance.
By Dayv Metcalfe
Some people migrated to pursue dreams or career, others to escape poor living conditions and some even to avoid political persecution. Kim had migrated because it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
She’d been single, her employment contract had ended and she’d just plain fancied a change. She already had some friends abroad so she’d bought a ticket with the majority of her savings and followed them.
London Town. The Big Smoke.
Kim was a positive soul so as she’d dragged her suitcase along the pavement, trying to avoid baked beans cans and torn chip packets, she’d repeated the mantra ‘everything is going to be okay’.
It had to be. Her ticket had been one way and her bank balance was woefully deficient of the funds it would take her to get back to the sunny shores of Auckland.
Her positivity was tested further when she’d discovered the warm welcome her ex-pat friends had promised apparently had an expiry date. After one week of dossing on their tiny couch, in their tiny flat, the cheerful smiles turned to queries of her move out date. As week two rolled into week three the queries were steadily getting frostier and Kim knew she was endangering her friendship status.
Kim’s mantra was getting worn out as her stress levels increased. She couldn’t find work and without work she couldn’t afford housing and if she alienated the few friends she had in the city, her future looked very bleak indeed.
Her niggles of doubt had turned into outright certainties. Moving abroad had been a bad fucking idea.
It was the morning she’d woken with a cramp in her back but was too despondent to move as she’d stared unseeingly at the ceiling, that she found the ad.
“Tooting flat - free rent. Only those morally deficient need apply.”
Kim had genuinely smiled as she’d read it, for the first time in a long time. She appreciated a good sense of humour so she’d used the last of her phone credit to make an appointment.
It was a terraced house and the very nature of a terraced house was that, bar the paint job, they were generally indistinguishable from the next. Still, as Kim paused on the approach of the second house in the row, she was filled with a sense of foreboding and wished she was about to enter any of the neighbouring houses instead. She was suddenly extremely conscious that she hadn’t told anyone where she was going.
Kim got her phone out of her bag and texted one of the friends she was staying with. She hit send; T-Mobile hit her back with a no credit message. She was on her own. She tapped her foot rapidly on the pathway, she could go back to the flat she was unwanted at or she could knock on the door that could potentially decrease her cortisol production.
She knocked on the door.
The man that answered could’ve been described as normal, in the same way the house in the terrace resembled the others, the same but not quite.
He was thrumming with anticipation that didn’t marry up with Kim’s expectation of a landlord. His thinning hair was plastered to his head with sweat and the temperature was sixteen degrees at best. Despite her disquiet, when he offered her entrance, Kim took it. She gripped her useless phone in her hand as some sort of talisman as he locked the door behind them with an emotion that could only be described as glee.
“So, you’re ad said free rent.” Kim said as she pressed herself against the hall wall to let him pass.
“You will never pay rent.” The odd landlord grinned and headed off down the hall. As a twenty three year old girl in a stranger’s home, she was concerned, as a homeless person with no other prospects; she was compelled to follow him into the house.
She found him standing in the centre of a large reception room, empty of all furnishings, and he was rubbing his hands together. It was at exactly that moment that Kim realised she was being the stupid girl from the horror movies everyone always shouted instructions at.
“You know what, I’ve changed my mind.” Kim said as she took a step backwards.
The man’s grin made her blood run cold. “Too late.”
Kim spun around to run, sure that she could make it to the front door before he could catch her. She stopped dead in her tracks. There was something in front of her blocking the door, a smoky black mass that she instinctively knew she didn’t want to run through. Before her eyes the mass solidified until it resembled hundreds of squirming eel-like creatures that were coated in a thick, black oily substance. Razor sharp teeth protruded from their mouths and the black substance dripped from the tips, if she looked down she knew she’d see the black goo pooling at her feet. They writhed against one another but regardless of the direction of their movement their angry red eyes remained on her. They were studying her.
Kim was frozen. In some distance part of her mind she knew she should be screaming or running or even fainting but it was as though she were observing the scene from outside her body with no control of her motor skills.
The thing closed the gap between them and she heard the man behind her squeal in delight. “I want to watch!” He exclaimed as he clapped his hands together.
The things attention immediately switched to him, the red eyed eels seeming to study him intently as they had done her. The sound of its voice was Kim’s undoing. It was an accumulation of all the most terrifying sounds she could’ve imagined and yet as it rasped its message she heard them all individually which heightened her terror.
“Corrrrupppptionnnnn.” The thing advanced towards the man as the sounds of skin rending, eyes popping, bones splintering still echoed in her head. She fainted dead away.
When she woke there was a shard of light bathing her face from a gap in the curtains. She was slow, groggy, wondering why she was laying on the floor when she recognised that she was in a stranger’s house. She saw her useless phone on the floor and jerked upright as memories rushed to the fore. A strangled cry escaped her as she saw the black thing drifting a few feet from her and behind it was a pool of congealing blood. The two walls near the pool had red splatter marks on them and the weird man was nowhere to be seen. She scooted backwards on her arse and the thing followed her. When her back hit the wall she screamed in desperation.
“Sssssttoppp.” Its voice made the word sound like teeth being filed, pins being driven under nails, toes being struck with a hammer and even though it made her need to scream more she stopped as though It’s will superseded hers.
The writhing, oily, eel-like creatures morphed back into the black smoky mass and drifted towards her. Every fibre of her being wanted to scream for all she was worth but apparently she was still under It’s will. The black mass drifted through her and a coldness seeped into her bones that chilled her to the point where she wondered if she would ever feel warm again, if she lived that long. Her eyes rolled up into her head as the thing communicated with her. Knowledge flashed in her minds eye and when the thing receded and drifted in front of her, she knew whole heartedly that It wouldn’t hurt her. It couldn’t hurt her. The certainty didn’t reduce her need to get gone.
As though to reassure her It confirmed her thoughts. “Sssssaaafe.”
She took comfort in the word despite the fact that it sounded like someone chewing jagged shards of glass. Comfort enough to inch her way up the wall to a standing position.
The thing floated before her as she made her way slowly out of the reception room and into the hall. It followed.
She wanted to run but was uncertain of the boundaries of the apparent truce they had. When her hand gripped the deadbolt she could’ve shouted for joy but instead she cringed as that horrific voice whispered through her mind.
“Sssssaaafe.”
She darted out the door and ran down the street, chancing a glance back to see if she was being followed. The door of the house was slowly closing and Kim thanked God she would never have to see the house or It again.
One week later Kim was back, standing on the doorstep with her suitcase by her side.
With each day that had passed Kim had felt compelled to return to the house and though she’d tried to fight it she had ultimately given in to the compulsion. That had happened at about the same time Kim had convinced herself that the thing in the house wasn’t evil. It wanted to eradicate evil and needed her help to do that and that was why she had been unharmed.
Only now that she was about to enter did she remember the fear she’d felt in It’s presence and began to doubt herself.
Kim stared at the front door, understanding her initial uneasiness now that she knew what lurked within. As she stared, mumbling her mantra under her breath, the door opened before her. If It had been on the threshold she didn’t think she could’ve entered but the way was clear so she dragged her case into the hall. Every hair on her body stood on end. She couldn’t see It but she knew it was there.
For what seemed like ten minutes she stood waiting but she remained alone in the entrance and eventually made her way into the reception room. The room was empty save for the congealed mass of blood coating the wooden floor and filling the room with a smell that made her want to gag. Kim pinched her nose closed as she surveyed the dark clots on the floor. She was surprised at the lack of flies feasting on the remains of the man but recognised that expectation may have been the blame of many a director’s artistic license. Unable to bear the mess any longer Kim went in search of cleaning products. In the kitchen she came across a large cupboard filled with tubs of baking soda and litres of white vinegar. On the inside of the cupboard door was a printed page from wikiHow with instructions on removing blood stains from hardwood flooring. The sheer volume of supplies in the cupboard coupled with the old stains she’d seen on the floor drove home just how many times It had done it’s thing.
Next to the cupboard was a wallet and in it she found the man’s driver’s license. The same name was on the pile of bills the wallet was sitting on, including a mortgage statement. The man It had killed was the owner of the house so he’d been providing victims for It for quite some time.
Kim scrubbed at the latest stain and wondered what had gotten the man killed. Had he grown addicted to providing victims for It and had therefore eradicated any goodness he’d had in himself?
Kim had no intention of falling into the same trap. She had a plan. For starters she wasn’t going to be staying around for long, once she had a job she would leave, and she intended to be much smarter with luring the victims. No Gumtree ads for her, she couldn’t be sure who would turn up on her doorstep, no she intended to let the victims come to It. Deserving ones.
The house wasn’t in a good area so Kim made sure that, every other day when she left the house, the front window was left wide open. Sure enough when she got back to the house a few hours later there would be a pool of blood from the latest would-be thief.
Despite the unsavoury job of having to do clean up, things were looking up for Kim. She still didn’t have a job but the house had proved to be a treasure trove. Not only had she found almost twenty thousand pounds sewn into the spare mattress, there had been multiple heirlooms and antiques she had sold for great profit.
She’d felt guilty when she’d come across recent letters from his son and realised she was effectively stealing his inheritance, but that feeling hadn’t lasted. She told herself she was saving the son from the knowledge of It. Plus, he would eventually get the inheritance of the house once she left and she was going to leave, just not yet. Sooner or later she would start looking for work again and then she would leave. For the time being she was happy to enjoy London with her ill gotten gains.
Kim returned home one afternoon after having her nails and hair done. When she entered the house she could hear a man’s strangled cries from the reception room.
She paused wondering if she should go back out and return once it was all over with but then she realised she had a chance to see how It did it’s thing. She often wondered as she scrubbed the floors what It did with the bones – did It eat them? Surely it wouldn’t hurt to have a peak?
“Honey, I’m home.” She called as she stepped into the room.
Oily black eels with blood red eyes were swarming over the thief. When he saw her his cries grew louder and more frantic. “Help me!”
Kim shrugged at him. “Sucks to be you, bro.”
The eels immediately ceased their writhing and every set of red eyes darted to her. It relinquished its hold on the man and he dropped to the ground.
“Corrrrupppptionnnnn.” It’s voice sounded like flesh blistering and boils erupting as It advanced.
Before Kim could run It was on her. The eels squeezed around her limbs mercilessly and where the black oil that dripped from their teeth landed on her skin it burned like acid. The pain that lanced into her as the first set of teeth dug into her flesh was agonizing. Hundreds more followed until she teetered on the brink of insanity with pain.
Her last thought as she was slowly eaten was that she should’ve left when she’d had the chance.
By Dayv Metcalfe
Food Sex and Shelter
She gets on my nerves. I thought about us splitting up all the time. We had been together seven years and were due to get married in the next. I did not go to bed thinking about white dresses an ornate cake and lazy cocktails on far away beaches. I went to bed thinking how annoying it was to hear her eat. It seemed she spoke to her food as she chewed away, making love to it with little grunts of pleasure. Certainly in a more adoring way than our actual love making. She'd laugh at nothing, then not laugh when something was funny. The overly blue eye shadow she put on made me think of ABBA.
One day she said to me, "let's go for a walk." She had caught me rolling a joint on her dead mother's bible. It was a bad habit of mine but the bible always seemed to be handy. I told her I truly felt bad and would never do it again but she seemed to have something else on her mind. We walked through the May spring, the bluebells were out and birds flitted around with important work. She was wearing that skirt that caught men's eyes, and heaps of blue eye shadow. We didn't talk whilst we walked, in fact we hardly ever talked, conversation had been scant for a long time, but that was because we were overly comfortable with each other surely? As we threaded out way through the beech wood, I felt guilty for getting annoyed with her. How she ate? What was wrong with me. I knew what was wrong with me, I didn't want to be with her, and in my defence, she didn't want to be with me.
We left the beech wood and the old chalk hill fort rose before us. It was a strange place, solemn. I felt a sudden coolness as the equinox winds bounced off the downs and clipped at the edge of the woods. The Romans hadn't touched this fort apparently, it was old and out of use when they invaded. But a strange tale was told of a small group of warriors from the Cantii tribe hiding within the hollow hill, making lightning strikes against Roman Legions before disappearing back into the chalk mound with spoils of food and women. We had come here one night in the early days, torches and sleeping bags in hand. Telling each other the story as we climbed then continuing and embellishing around a fire. We had laid down, suddenly nervous as our ecstatic tales of food and fires and sex concluded. The stars appeared, and a silence descended as we pondered our stories of supernatural violence and romance.
As we ascended on this day, I suddenly wondered why we were going there. Emma seemed intent on something, we had never talked about what happened that night, what we experienced. It was too surreal, too unearthly for us to discuss. We had to put it down to the bottles of red wine, but we remembered, we remembered privately and in every detail.
At the top the solemnness had taken over, the Kent country side was verdant around us and the beech tree wood rocked with the wind. It was strange that this place wasn't on the tourist map, you would see the odd walker with a dog, but not hoards of visitors. We sat down where we had made the fire all those years ago.
"Are you going to say it or am I?" She was looking at a mound in the centre of the flattened out top and not at me as she spoke those words.
"Are we splitting up?" She turned to look at me as if I were from another planet.
"No you gonk, about that night." Oh, I said. I feared I sounded disappointed. I paused then related events.
"It was a hell of a feast. They brought out that steaming cauldron, then made a long table from lengths of wood. They set the table, they piled it with slow cooked meats from many beasts. The broth smelt of juniper berries and hazel nuts, wild garlic and nettles. We drank from ewers of a type of beer. There was black bread smothered in fat, hot and delicious smelling. Behind in that little mound we could see a light flickering orange. There were seven of them, painted in whirling blues with their hair spiked up with chalk. They didn't speak, but ate, they ate like you eat, muttering and grunting and slurping away." Emma smiled at me.
"Food Sex and Shelter. What else can someone want?" She was very faraway with her words.
"We imagined it didn't we? Or engaged in a ghostly scene." I remembered my full belly, and when I got home there was grease on my clothes.
"No we didn't. The world is different to how we are taught it, and when we come up against the difference, we reject it." She nodded, more to herself than to me.
The day was ending and dusk settled around us. I wanted to go home, but Emma kept looking at the mound, a slight smile on her face. I was so sure we were heading to the top of the hill to say goodbye, and I felt cowardly disappointment. I thought we would carry on living in the house until one of us moved out, her hopefully, we could probably still be friends. Maybe I should say it. I searched for some words, nearly found them, then a crack of orange light appeared from the mound. Emma caught her breath and I froze.
The seven Celtic warriors filed out then made a line in front of us. This time there was no feast. They were dressed for battle, that is, they held weaponry and were naked and engorged . They did not look at me, they looked at Emma and with tremendous understanding I realized. They wanted her, all those years ago she knew they did but had chosen me. My indifference towards her had made her make this decision. All at once the frivolous dislikes I had about her fled. Emma, my fiancé stood and did not even look at me.
"Emma?" I stood too. "You can't, what are you doing?" The words Food Sex and Shelter rung in my ears and I screamed "Conversation! You need to be able to have a fucking conversation!" She looked back then, only to cock an eye brow. Slowly, dreamlike, she walked towards the painted men of the Cantii tribe. They closed around her and led her into the hollow hill.
By Andy Parker
One day she said to me, "let's go for a walk." She had caught me rolling a joint on her dead mother's bible. It was a bad habit of mine but the bible always seemed to be handy. I told her I truly felt bad and would never do it again but she seemed to have something else on her mind. We walked through the May spring, the bluebells were out and birds flitted around with important work. She was wearing that skirt that caught men's eyes, and heaps of blue eye shadow. We didn't talk whilst we walked, in fact we hardly ever talked, conversation had been scant for a long time, but that was because we were overly comfortable with each other surely? As we threaded out way through the beech wood, I felt guilty for getting annoyed with her. How she ate? What was wrong with me. I knew what was wrong with me, I didn't want to be with her, and in my defence, she didn't want to be with me.
We left the beech wood and the old chalk hill fort rose before us. It was a strange place, solemn. I felt a sudden coolness as the equinox winds bounced off the downs and clipped at the edge of the woods. The Romans hadn't touched this fort apparently, it was old and out of use when they invaded. But a strange tale was told of a small group of warriors from the Cantii tribe hiding within the hollow hill, making lightning strikes against Roman Legions before disappearing back into the chalk mound with spoils of food and women. We had come here one night in the early days, torches and sleeping bags in hand. Telling each other the story as we climbed then continuing and embellishing around a fire. We had laid down, suddenly nervous as our ecstatic tales of food and fires and sex concluded. The stars appeared, and a silence descended as we pondered our stories of supernatural violence and romance.
As we ascended on this day, I suddenly wondered why we were going there. Emma seemed intent on something, we had never talked about what happened that night, what we experienced. It was too surreal, too unearthly for us to discuss. We had to put it down to the bottles of red wine, but we remembered, we remembered privately and in every detail.
At the top the solemnness had taken over, the Kent country side was verdant around us and the beech tree wood rocked with the wind. It was strange that this place wasn't on the tourist map, you would see the odd walker with a dog, but not hoards of visitors. We sat down where we had made the fire all those years ago.
"Are you going to say it or am I?" She was looking at a mound in the centre of the flattened out top and not at me as she spoke those words.
"Are we splitting up?" She turned to look at me as if I were from another planet.
"No you gonk, about that night." Oh, I said. I feared I sounded disappointed. I paused then related events.
"It was a hell of a feast. They brought out that steaming cauldron, then made a long table from lengths of wood. They set the table, they piled it with slow cooked meats from many beasts. The broth smelt of juniper berries and hazel nuts, wild garlic and nettles. We drank from ewers of a type of beer. There was black bread smothered in fat, hot and delicious smelling. Behind in that little mound we could see a light flickering orange. There were seven of them, painted in whirling blues with their hair spiked up with chalk. They didn't speak, but ate, they ate like you eat, muttering and grunting and slurping away." Emma smiled at me.
"Food Sex and Shelter. What else can someone want?" She was very faraway with her words.
"We imagined it didn't we? Or engaged in a ghostly scene." I remembered my full belly, and when I got home there was grease on my clothes.
"No we didn't. The world is different to how we are taught it, and when we come up against the difference, we reject it." She nodded, more to herself than to me.
The day was ending and dusk settled around us. I wanted to go home, but Emma kept looking at the mound, a slight smile on her face. I was so sure we were heading to the top of the hill to say goodbye, and I felt cowardly disappointment. I thought we would carry on living in the house until one of us moved out, her hopefully, we could probably still be friends. Maybe I should say it. I searched for some words, nearly found them, then a crack of orange light appeared from the mound. Emma caught her breath and I froze.
The seven Celtic warriors filed out then made a line in front of us. This time there was no feast. They were dressed for battle, that is, they held weaponry and were naked and engorged . They did not look at me, they looked at Emma and with tremendous understanding I realized. They wanted her, all those years ago she knew they did but had chosen me. My indifference towards her had made her make this decision. All at once the frivolous dislikes I had about her fled. Emma, my fiancé stood and did not even look at me.
"Emma?" I stood too. "You can't, what are you doing?" The words Food Sex and Shelter rung in my ears and I screamed "Conversation! You need to be able to have a fucking conversation!" She looked back then, only to cock an eye brow. Slowly, dreamlike, she walked towards the painted men of the Cantii tribe. They closed around her and led her into the hollow hill.
By Andy Parker
Kathryn
They burned his house in Carlsway to the ground. He'd seen the flames from The Old Coach at Craw and had run across the fields with Ted and the others arriving in the garden breathless, desolate. There was nothing to be done, the house was a wall of angry white fire, the hottest it would be. Everything was lost.
Beyond the house to the north, they could see a line of lanterns floating up the hillside through the forest back toward the town. Held aloft by dark invisible hands, their light cast quick and sharp shadows through the trees like a clashing of swords.
In front of the burning house the group had moved back a safe distance and they remained in silence for some time sitting among the swirling smoke and watching the fire decimate the timbers. Beside them in the lake everything was mirrored and when the blackened and precarious skeleton of the house eventually lurched and collapsed to the ground it sent a heralding cascade of burning ash into the air. As they looked the reflection burst across the water like a dying amber star.
As the house fell, the men felt the air sucked from around them with a low whooshing sound, as if the fire were gasping for a final lungful of oxygen to keep it alight. Daire looked upwards to the night sky through a galaxy of cinders and whispered a prayer.
Ted was first to speak, putting a hand on Daire's shoulder. 'Well it's done now. You'll not be worrying at least. Waiting for it to come'.
'She was going to leave Ted.' Daire's face was mottled black from the flying ash and patches of his skin glowed from the heat of the fire which still licked around the pile of debris that once was his home. Ted saw how Daire's tears had dissolved lines down his cheeks, saw the hurt in his eyes.
'I know Daire,' Ted paused, then looking over to his son Martin he added, 'You'll be staying with us now.'
Martin joined in enthusiastically looking back at Ted as he spoke, 'That's right Daire, we've plenty of room with the little ones sharing a cot.'
'That'll be good,' said Daire. 'Until things are put right at least. Thank you, really.' He looked at them both.
Ted nodded. 'You're welcome as long as it takes Daire, you know that.' Ted looked towards the smoldering remains of the house. 'It's a terrible thing they've done. A terrible thing.'
Bill Mahey came over from Dirnham with a machine a few days after the fire and together he and Daire began the work to clear the house remains. They separated what could be reused, Daire would rebuild the house in time, but there was precious little. A few shingles here and there from the roof, and the back room window frame was largely unscathed. Everything else they buried in a pit dug away at the edge of the forest.
In the garden, Bill and Daire looked at the sign erected the night of the fire.
'They've not done this for a while Bill,' Daire said.
'Aye Daire, and I can't say I ever thought I'd see it again. You'll not be taking it down now. I wouldn't even touch it if I was you. They'll be coming for it in time.'
'We'd made the plans Bill. She had her family out to the west; an aunt and cousins. Ted was bringing a horse down for her, did you know that?'
'I did Daire, but they couldn't let her go. You understand? Not out there on her own. It wouldn't be good for the village.'
'But how would they know Bill? She'd have been careful, travelling at night and all.'
Bill chose his words carefully, mulling them over and hearing how they sounded in his own head before finally speaking. 'Daire. Everyone knew. The news of this travelled long ago away from Carlsway, on all points to the sea I don't doubt. It's the way of things.'
'She was sick Bill, I know, but not this.' Daire's eyes led Bill's to a willow coffin which sat a dozen or so feet away on an area of grass the fire hadn't reached. Beside it was a small mound; Kate's body. Bill bowed his head.
Daire had found her in the tangle of the house and had carefully removed her as soon as the fire had abated. They had cut her throat thank God and here over her charred body he'd laid Sweet grass and Dog roses from the garden. Daire walked over to Kate and after kneeling over her for a while, carefully and tenderly, lifted her up. As he held her, the grass and roses slipped away to the ground and they shared one final gruesome embrace before Daire lowered her naked twisted body into the coffin.
Daire had been to the forest to collect Kate's favourite White spotted orchids and these he placed upon her chest, closing her buckled and blistered hands around them. As he closed the lid he realised that leaving her would be the hardest thing he could imagine doing and even though it was too soon, he knew all that is born must return to the earth in time. Beauty is given back to god.
Bill watched from a distance. Presently, he looked up and spoke quietly. 'Kathryn was a fine woman Daire.'
'Aye, she was,' said Daire and he looked again at the sign. It was made of wood. A stake around six feet high had been driven into the ground and near the top, a rough timber board had been nailed to it. Painted on the board in the deepest red, were two broad stokes that formed an unmistakable cross.
By Darren Seeley
Beyond the house to the north, they could see a line of lanterns floating up the hillside through the forest back toward the town. Held aloft by dark invisible hands, their light cast quick and sharp shadows through the trees like a clashing of swords.
In front of the burning house the group had moved back a safe distance and they remained in silence for some time sitting among the swirling smoke and watching the fire decimate the timbers. Beside them in the lake everything was mirrored and when the blackened and precarious skeleton of the house eventually lurched and collapsed to the ground it sent a heralding cascade of burning ash into the air. As they looked the reflection burst across the water like a dying amber star.
As the house fell, the men felt the air sucked from around them with a low whooshing sound, as if the fire were gasping for a final lungful of oxygen to keep it alight. Daire looked upwards to the night sky through a galaxy of cinders and whispered a prayer.
Ted was first to speak, putting a hand on Daire's shoulder. 'Well it's done now. You'll not be worrying at least. Waiting for it to come'.
'She was going to leave Ted.' Daire's face was mottled black from the flying ash and patches of his skin glowed from the heat of the fire which still licked around the pile of debris that once was his home. Ted saw how Daire's tears had dissolved lines down his cheeks, saw the hurt in his eyes.
'I know Daire,' Ted paused, then looking over to his son Martin he added, 'You'll be staying with us now.'
Martin joined in enthusiastically looking back at Ted as he spoke, 'That's right Daire, we've plenty of room with the little ones sharing a cot.'
'That'll be good,' said Daire. 'Until things are put right at least. Thank you, really.' He looked at them both.
Ted nodded. 'You're welcome as long as it takes Daire, you know that.' Ted looked towards the smoldering remains of the house. 'It's a terrible thing they've done. A terrible thing.'
Bill Mahey came over from Dirnham with a machine a few days after the fire and together he and Daire began the work to clear the house remains. They separated what could be reused, Daire would rebuild the house in time, but there was precious little. A few shingles here and there from the roof, and the back room window frame was largely unscathed. Everything else they buried in a pit dug away at the edge of the forest.
In the garden, Bill and Daire looked at the sign erected the night of the fire.
'They've not done this for a while Bill,' Daire said.
'Aye Daire, and I can't say I ever thought I'd see it again. You'll not be taking it down now. I wouldn't even touch it if I was you. They'll be coming for it in time.'
'We'd made the plans Bill. She had her family out to the west; an aunt and cousins. Ted was bringing a horse down for her, did you know that?'
'I did Daire, but they couldn't let her go. You understand? Not out there on her own. It wouldn't be good for the village.'
'But how would they know Bill? She'd have been careful, travelling at night and all.'
Bill chose his words carefully, mulling them over and hearing how they sounded in his own head before finally speaking. 'Daire. Everyone knew. The news of this travelled long ago away from Carlsway, on all points to the sea I don't doubt. It's the way of things.'
'She was sick Bill, I know, but not this.' Daire's eyes led Bill's to a willow coffin which sat a dozen or so feet away on an area of grass the fire hadn't reached. Beside it was a small mound; Kate's body. Bill bowed his head.
Daire had found her in the tangle of the house and had carefully removed her as soon as the fire had abated. They had cut her throat thank God and here over her charred body he'd laid Sweet grass and Dog roses from the garden. Daire walked over to Kate and after kneeling over her for a while, carefully and tenderly, lifted her up. As he held her, the grass and roses slipped away to the ground and they shared one final gruesome embrace before Daire lowered her naked twisted body into the coffin.
Daire had been to the forest to collect Kate's favourite White spotted orchids and these he placed upon her chest, closing her buckled and blistered hands around them. As he closed the lid he realised that leaving her would be the hardest thing he could imagine doing and even though it was too soon, he knew all that is born must return to the earth in time. Beauty is given back to god.
Bill watched from a distance. Presently, he looked up and spoke quietly. 'Kathryn was a fine woman Daire.'
'Aye, she was,' said Daire and he looked again at the sign. It was made of wood. A stake around six feet high had been driven into the ground and near the top, a rough timber board had been nailed to it. Painted on the board in the deepest red, were two broad stokes that formed an unmistakable cross.
By Darren Seeley
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