by Luke Kondor
“You’re alive. Good. I believe we are making progress towards the land of Nottingham. This, Luna, has decided to take us the whole way.”
“Yes,” Luna said. “Somehow. I mean, I couldn’t just leave you out here with a sick cat. I’m not a monster. Doesn’t matter anyway, we should be arriving within the next hour, but … where exactly are we going?” Luna said.
“Home,” Moomamu said.
“And where is that?”
“23 Peafield Lane, Mansfield Woodhouse,” Gary said, his eyes barely open now. “We’re going to see a woman and her dog.”
“And will they be taking me home?” Moomamu said, irritation in his voice.
“Okay,” the cat said, not hearing the question, closing his eyes again. “Okay.”
“Rude,” Moomamu said, and turned back to the front of the moving machine.
“Don’t worry,” Luna said, with her mouth wide and her teeth showing. “He’s sleepy from the drugs. He’s not being …”
Moomamu couldn’t remember the rest of her words, because he found himself drifting off to sleep too.
He dreamt of stars and planets and fire.
Markus Schmiebler
“I awoke on this planet with a flash of light. I awoke scared, alone, with one thought and one thought alone,” Yayatoo said. Her alabaster face was a marble sculpture in the white lights of the stage. “I wanted to run away. I wanted to go back to my glorious home in the stars.”
Markus shook his head. All he saw up there was his wife. His Louise. He remembered the profile picture from the online dating website.
“I woke next to a fool of a human and … I didn’t like it, so I ran.”
“No,” Markus whispered.
“But then … as I ran through the wilderness of the streets full of dying lifeforms, struggling to find love and happiness and unwilling to see the futility in their existence, I saw that I was sent here for a purpose.”
“You okay, dude?” the swordsman cosplayer whispered into his ear and he nodded.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“And so I have decided to stay.”
A slow build of applause.
“I have decided to help the human race.”
Now the audience was cheering again.
“I decided to lead you all to your real purpose in life.”
“Yes to Yayatoo!” a random man shouted from the crowd and she nodded with delicate authority. “Yes to Yayatoo!” More people joined in.
“No,” Markus found himself shouting. “No!”
“Yes to Yayatoo! Yes to Yayatoo! Yes to Yayatoo!” The crowd was now chanting.
“No, no, no!” He pulled down his mask and pushed himself past a man dressed like an orc and a woman dressed like Spiderman. “Louise, no!” He tried to get to the front of the cosplayers, by the foot of the stage when he realised the chanting had stopped. Louise was looking at him, smiling. So was Samwell from the side of the stage. He turned to see the cosplayers were too. Everyone was staring at him in silence.
“And there he is,” Louise said, pointing to him. “Which means it’s finally time to start the Sesh.”
Suddenly the cosplayers erupted into a roar and charged towards him. He could just make out the odd horn, a bit of face-paint, maybe a tail, before he felt something repeatedly smash into his side and his nose and a bag being pulled over his head. His body was lifted into the air. He felt hundreds of hands pushing upwards, moving him along the top of the crowd until he rolled onto the floor of the stage. He tried to wriggle himself free from the bag but somebody kicked him twice. The first one knocked the wind out of him and he heaved.
As he lay there, trying to get his breath back, a soft hand landed on his shoulder. It felt familiar.
“Your Louise has gone,” a voice whispered to him. “Only Yayatoo remains.”
He lay in the dark, crying and wheezing, waiting for the Sesh to begin.
Aidan Black
White Log Farm, 2002
Aidan’s eyes began to close when he heard the Pig-House door open.
“I’ll be honest,” he said. “The alcohol has gotten to me.” He laughed, but Sammy didn’t join in. “I can tell I’m starting to feel it when the space around me feels like it’s stretching.”
“I normally feel the same thing.”
Aidan sat up, pushing the nearly empty bottle of rum behind his back.
“I normally drink that with ice. It doesn’t do it justice straight out of the bottle like that,” Lenny said. He looked tired. He was in his vest top, holes and old paint stains, and his hair was out of its tie, tumbling over his ears. His toolbox still in his hand.
“I’m …”
“That’s okay,” he said. “That’s okay. I would’ve done the same.”
He walked over to Aidan, placed the toolbox on the floor, and sat next to him on the straw. Aidan tried to wipe his eyes back to sober, but it wasn’t working. His heartbeat pulsed. He wanted to run away.
“You know, I remember when your mother was a little kid, running around, her hair bouncing around as she played with the animals.” He leaned in closer with every word, his voice a low grumble. “I remember her being a little shit too, just like you.” He ran his hand along the Walkman headphones around his neck.
“Mum was good,” Aidan said, now crying, struggling to get each word out. “Mum was a good person.”
“Yeah, no, she was. Maybe. Perhaps I’m the bad guy. I don’t know. But all I know is … all I remember is the day where your grandmother took your mother and left me alone here in this shit-hole. And you know what …” He chuckled. “You know what your bitch of a mother said to me as her grandmother whisked her away?”
Aidan shook his head.
“She said, ‘you deserve to be alone’. Imagine a little kid, only twelve at the time, telling her fucking father that he deserved to be alone.”
A moment passed and Aidan ran his good hand under his nose and Lenny looked through the same hole in the roof that Aidan had been staring at.
“I’m sorry,” Aidan said.
“What? You’re sorry? Don’t be,” he said. “But you know … you know what I see when I look at you, at your blue eyes, at your brown hair?”
Aidan shook his head.
“I see that same smug face of your mother’s.” He leaned in closer now. His mouth was almost touching his ear. Each breath and each exhalation smelled like death. “And now … what do I see … some little bitch who thinks he knows better than his granddad. Thinks he’s all grown up. Gets himself expelled from school. Gets his fingers all busted up. And now look at him, drinking from his granddad’s supply.”
Lenny leaned forward and unlatched the toolbox. Aidan’s stomach sank. He felt like he could just run. Just get up and run. Lenny pulled out the hammer and placed it on the floor in front of them both. Aidan saw a speck of his own dried blood on the wooden handle.
“What do you say?” he said. “Maybe start on the other hand?”
The pigs were starting to move around again. It would’ve been their normal feeding time around now. They were getting hungry.
“No?” he said.
Aidan shook his head.
“You do deserve to be alone,” he whispered.
“What?” Lenny said, as he pulled Aidan’s head back. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Aidan sniffed hard and looked to his granddad. A new face of determination.
“You deserve to be alone.”
He went to jump to his feet, but Lenny grabbed him by the foot and yanked him to the floor. He slapped him with the back of his hand across the face and reached into the toolbox again. Before Aidan knew what was happening he felt pain he never thought possible. Something in his hand. A lightning strike of pain. Something snapping. And then something else. He felt his granddad’s boot on his hand again. He saw the shears and he saw his granddad throw two small pellets of food into the pig pen, which were quickly gobbled up. He lay there, not sure what was happening or what to
do. He felt himself go light. He felt his world go dark.
Maybe he was a problem child. Maybe he didn’t deserve any sort of success. He thought about his teacher Mr Danning and why he and Sammy no longer went to school. In detention, on his knees, being forced to do something he didn’t want to do. Is that what he deserved?
As he became lucid again he picked his head up and looked up at his granddad. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at initially, but when he saw his brother Sammy it started to make sense. His granddad falling to his knees. Blood gushing from his stomach.
It reminded him of the time in detention. Sammy running into that supply cupboard. Sammy getting hold of Mr Danning. He remembered seeing his brother’s fists fly as his teacher’s blood splattered the walls.
And now … as Sammy pulled the large gardening shears from his granddad’s stomach and the old man fell to the floor, he accepted it. Yes, he was the problem child, but it was Sammy, his big brother, who was the violent one.
He held onto his hand and touched where his two fingers should have been and listened as Sammy pulled the shears out of his granddad’s belly and thrust them back in, again, and again. And as he lay there, staring through the familiar hole in the ceiling, looking at the stars, he heard a voice … a quiet whisper.
I can make you a success, it said. I can make you a success.
Sammy Black
They didn’t hear the click. They didn’t hear the snapping shut of the padlock. The clasping of the metal. Sammy waited for a few moments to see if they tried to open the door. They didn’t.
He looked down the road towards the town, hoping to see the familiar headlights of the van, but there was nothing but quiet. Sammy didn’t run to the house. He didn’t make any tea. He crouched beneath the admin cabin window, crawled across the gravel, towards the open garage, scratching his knees and elbows as he went. He’d done it before. Many times with Aidan — hide and seek and the like. The games of childhood.
Once past the window, he got onto his feet and ran, his feet crunching away on the floor. He ran straight into the garage, its painted red door always open. There were no cars, just old ladders and tools and, by the side of the entrance, a row of red canisters, each of them full of petrol. He walked over to the workbench, dusty, a few loose screws, a dirtied paintbrush. He reached beneath and pulled open a drawer and grabbed a rusty old Zippo lighter — the angriest item in that whole garage.
He picked up two of the canisters, one in each hand, and paced back towards the admin cabin. The canisters swung in his hand — spitting petrol upwards, splashing his shoes. This time he didn’t crawl, instead he walked openly past the window, back to the locked door. He didn’t care if the two of them saw him. He was on a mission now.
He put one of the canisters down and used his free hand to help lift the other canister upwards, allowing the petrol with all its stink and glory to freely run out and soak the wooden structure of the building. He side-stepped along, pissing petrol up the walls, like a proud dog marking its territory. The visible wood under the chipped white paint darkened with each dousing.
Once the canister was empty he placed his ear to the door. He heard some talking and then a sudden bang as something kicked against the door. They were trying to get out. The second red canister remained on the floor, unused. Too late for that, he thought.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, and reached into his pocket. He flicked the wheel of the lighter but it didn’t work. He tried again. Nothing. The door banged again, shaking, but the lock was strong. It was built to stop bastards from breaking in, and, coincidentally, intruders from breaking out. He tried the lighter again. Nothing.
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered, this time turning the lighter upside-down, allowing the fluid to soak the wick. He tried again. A small flame sparked into life. An angry little flame.
He heard the intruders inside, shouting. The door banged again.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He threw the lighter, and within seconds of hitting a small puddle of the petrol, the whole side of the admin cabin went up. The heat was so strong Sammy had to take a couple of steps back. He could only imagine how hot it was inside.
Leonard Black
Farmer, Entertainer, Handyman, Familyman.
Leonard Black, who has been missing for the past three years, has been presumed dead. He was an English farmer, a handyman, and sole caretaker of his daughter’s two children.
Seven years ago Leonard lost his daughter and her husband to a fatal car accident on an English motorway, following which Leonard became the guardian of his grandchildren, Samuel, 18, and Aidan, 12. He took them under his wing and helped them throughout their understandably troubled school days, by giving them jobs on his petting farm — White Log Farm — a tourist attraction that reached peak success in the late 1990s with hundreds of visitors every week. One online reviewer mentions that they “had a lovely day” and another mentions how they “loved feeding the pigs”.
Leonard had recently taken on more and more painting and decorating jobs in his local village of Alvaston, due to the recent closure of the petting farm. A decline of customers and an increase in bills and debt forced him to close the farm for the time being, with a look to reopening the following summer.
However, in mid 2002, Leonard Black went missing. He was last seen by his two grandsons before he left to finish some repair work on a neighbour’s fence. Since his disappearance, his eldest grandson was left in charge of the property, and even though he was considered young at the time, has maintained the farm, opening to visitors for short bursts in the summer periods.
Our hearts go out to a family who’s already lost so much.
Leonard Black, 1951-2005.
Carol Francis
CAROL SLAMMED HER PALM AGAINST the car horn as a teenage racer wannabe pulled out in front of her. She saw his goofy little pimpled face poking out of his Adidas hood as he drove past. Probably fresh out of driving school and he already thought he was king of the road. She could still hear the bumchikka loud music — whatever it was — as he sped off around the corner. She didn’t understand music anymore. In fact, she never did understand human music. Other than Tom Jones that was. She definitely understood Tom Jones.
“Sorry, Indie,” she said, as Indie lifted her head up from the backseat, her ears drooping down. “I wouldn’t have to honk if it wasn’t for stupid bastards. They seem to be multiplying … there’s so goddamn many of them now.”
Indie was looking back at her through the rear-view mirror. She smiled. Indie was panting, worn out from the run they’d just been on. Well, the run that Indie had been on; Carol was simply there to throw balls and to escort. She looked at Indie’s striking blue eyes. They were always amazing to Carol. Precious little gemstones glued to the dog’s skull. One day, Indie would die, and her beautiful blues will rot and melt away. Their ephemeral nature being part of their charm.
“Such a beauty, aren’t yer?” Indie’s tail wagged just the once. “Ey?” Indie lay back down and whined.
Carol smelled the scented plastic bags in her pocket — for picking up poo. She felt the mud dried into the wrinkles of her hand. Her skin still cold from the woods. The only thing on her mind at that point was getting home, having a cup of tea, and jumping into a hot bath with the soaps and smelling salts that Jim had bought her for Christmas. It was a morning routine now. Dog. Tea. Bath. Maybe stick on some Tom Jones. She’d come to appreciate the mating calls of the Welsh singer in her time on the planet. He had a nice set of pipes on him. And he didn’t sound too bad either. She drove down the long road, past the trees of Sherwood Forest, and back into her small town of Mansfield Woodhouse. She could almost smell the jasmine scented bubbles already, but when she pulled onto her driveway and saw what was waiting for her she knew this would be no relaxing morning. She saw a bearded man and some copper-haired woman holding a sick cat, standing there, knocking on her door.
She recognised only one of them.
Aidan Black
>
Aidan needed a change of clothes. He needed to eat. He needed to wash the blood from his hands. He needed a shower. He needed to … He pushed the foot pedal to the floor and watched the needle jump to the right as the van revved and passed several cars in one burst.
“You’ll remain in the cell until the authorities arrive to come and collect you. Now is that understood?” The fat guard had no idea. He’d taken Aidan back to some little box of a room in the station. He didn’t have a clue. He was dressed in the navy uniform. The walkie-talkie strapped to his leg. A badge embroidered on the boob of his black cotton jumper.
“Do you know who I am?” Aidan had said to the fat guard. “Do you fucking know who I am?”
This poor sucker. Two hundred pounds of fat, muscle, and head, waddling about. Of course, he’d got the drop on Aidan when he wasn’t looking. This fat guard who’d said he didn’t give a shit who Aidan was. He didn’t see it coming, and now those goofy fat eyes of white would never see anything again.
“Listen to me,” Aidan had said to him.
“Yes? What?”
“I’m guessing this is just a day job, right? I’m guessing you just come here every day, clock in, clock out, go home, eat ramen, whatever … is this how you saw your life ending up when you were a kid?”
And here the goofy-eyed fucker leaned in a little closer, his bulbous eyes almost touching Aidan’s face. The door not even shut yet. What a pro.
“If you quit, right now, and leave, you might just wake up tomorrow with a new lease of life. You might just go home, wake up refreshed, ready to … I dunno, start a business, find a woman, eat a donut, whatever. Wouldn’t you like to do that? I’m giving you the opportunity to succeed. Take it. Take the fucking opportunity.” And here the fat man sighed. An invisible weight lifting from his blue shoulder patches.
