by Mike French
How long I clutched this wall I don’t know but eventually the sound of a piano came tinkling up the hill. Someone was playing ‘Old Barbed Wire’, that rousing tune from the front. Maybe the riot has passed? I tried to sing along but the words from the town centre are not the ones I learnt with our boys in the trenches:
“Looking for old man Impey? We know where he’s at. We know where he is.”
“He’s a hanging at the old Town Hall.”
“We’ve seen him. We’ve seen him.”
Ernest Greer, that hero of Chocolate Hill in 1915, was obviously the town’s nemesis and now it seemed, Mayor Impey’s hangman too. My body was pressed up against the soaking wall and I began to feel Greer’s thin municipal trousers loose their grip. My nails were dug deep into the concrete between the grey brickwork but I was slipping away. I remember Greer’s words ‘Hey whisky priest ...’and I sought His guidance but I was slipping fast now and couldn’t hear even, His reply. The lights went out in 1914.
Darkness still surrounds me.
A Fable from the New World
by Rob Sherriff
The few dozen or so children had been warned not to venture beyond the ‘Soft’ but on such a gloriously humid dark time their inquisitive nature got the better of them. The ‘Hard’, as it was referred to, was not as lush in plant life as the area they lived in, yet some plants grew through the cracks in the grey floor; the creeping vines the most abundant of these, which covered the great mountains of rock like a green net.
It had been about an eighth of a cycle since they left their burrow in the deep trees. Fleetingly one of the children wondered if their parents would be worried about them, before abruptly being drawn away from the thought by a screech from one of its siblings.
“Zszsszzzszzzsztczzzssszz!”
The children scuttled over the uneven landscape towards their sibling’s call. It stood waiting for them at the bottom of a deep crevasse.
“Zsszszszszssssczzszzzsz?” one of them questioned it.
“Sszsz zszs z,” it replied before disappearing into a narrow opening at the
bottom of the crevasse.
The Brood quickly followed their brother, excited to see what he had found buried down under the crumbling surface. They squeezed their hard bodies through the confining tunnel eventually coming out into a massive dank chamber.
They had never seen a place like this before; the walls were wood just like the tree they made their burrow in but this wood was smooth and patterned with bumps and curves. The ceiling was even more amazingly patterned. Spreading out the children began touching the strange textures, all new and intriguing. The ground was so smooth and cold some of the children took to lying down and rubbing themselves on it to cool down.
Farther in the space narrowed and then split off into other great areas. Most of these contained strange objects made of crossed sections of smooth wood and resting on these, little blocks, made of some material unknown to them. A child tried to pick one up but it crumbled to dust in its pincer. The rest of the Brood found this astonishingly exciting and they too began picking up the objects. They clicked their mandibles in glee as the objects crumbled away. One member of the family decided the best use for these objects was to hurl them at its siblings, covering them in dust. With a good pick the object didn’t explode into dust until the point of impact, showering the target in a pale yellowish cloud.
It wasn’t long before they had nearly all joined in. As dust flew everywhere some of the more timid in the Brood went farther into this strange place to escape the dust.
Entering a smaller space they found before them another unknown artefact: a small thin black slate rested on a wooden construct, different from the previous ones. Something that looked like a black worm ran from the artefact down into the wood. Next to it were other black worms, but they where loose and had small shiny mouths. Cautiously one of the children reached out and took hold of the slate, the worm fell away as the child raised it.
“Zzzszszszstt,” said its closest sibling.
The child holding the slate ignored its sibling and began turning the artefact over and over trying to find its purpose.
“Zzzszszszstt,” insisted the sibling again.
Still being ignored it impatiently ripped the artefact away and began fiddling with it itself. It found that holding down a little raised bump made the artefact flare to life, a light emitting from one side.
“Sttzzzszz,” said the children in amazement.
They were dazed and delighted by the patterns in the aurora. It settled on one image.
flickered prominently at the bottom of the image.
The child touched the image and it changed. Two smaller lights appeared in the middle of the slate. Again the child touched it. Something spun in the middle then the artefact let out a small disheartening noise and the light changed again.
“Stzzzczzs,” suggested one of them.
The child holding the artefact agreed and began randomly jabbing at any light that came up.
On the far side of the space something moved. The children looked over to a pile of rocks where the wall had begun to collapse, it was rumbling as something tried to move inside. In a shower of crumbling stone a creature appeared, bursting out of the mess. The children had no idea what it was, they had never seen an animal such as this. It appeared to have a hard outer shell similar to their own but it was shiny like the sun reflecting off water. Weirdest of all where the children would have expected it to have eyes and a mouth it only had more lights with patterns, ever changing, moving up its head.
The creature seemed to be unsure of itself, flexing its various parts and bending here and there, until suddenly the light on its head changed and steadied a little.
It stepped out of the mess and moved slowly towards them.
Shockingly it had only four limbs and used just two of them to scuttle, if you could call it that. It was more a way of wobbling from one limb to the other.
The children drew back. Out of the creature came the most horrible sounds and its head light flickered.
“Hello, valued customer. My name is Stephen Repurposed0606049. I see you are having trouble updating your device, would you like some assistance?”
The children began to screech and scuttled back to the rest of the Brood as fast as they could.
“ZZSSTTCSSSZSZCSSZT!” they cried to the siblings as they reached the space still filled with dust. The Brood stopped their play fighting and turned to their returned siblings.
“Sszt?” asked one of them.
“ZZZSSTZSZ,” came the reply.
Failing to heed the warning, thinking it only a game, the majority of the Brood clicked their mandibles at their siblings in jest then returned to their dust fighting.
The siblings who had seen the Shiny Beast grew angry and hurried for the exit. They looked back as they left at their stupid siblings still playing. Something glinted in the dust cloud.
“YOU HAVE DAMAGED LIBRARY PROPERTY. YOUR ACCOUNTS WILL BE CHARGED... ACCOUNTS NOT FOUND...”
The Brood stopped playing and stared into the dust at the source of the noise. As the dust cleared they saw what had entered the space and began to panic. The creature’s face was spinning with symbols.
“SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT SCHEME ... FILES CORRUPTED ...”
The Brood all scuttled wildly towards the entrance, climbing over one another to try to reach the tunnel. The first one there began squeezing up the tunnel followed by its sibling. Over their heads a hot light appeared and the tunnel wall crumbled around them, crushing them before they could reach the far end.
Screeching and scuttling back and forth the few children who didn’t reach the tunnel perished one by one as the shiny creature’s arm blasted out waves of hot light turning them to crisp smouldering shells. Some tried to
climb up the wood structures or hide in the piles of dust blocks but the creature relentlessly kept after them until soon there was only silence and the settling of dust.
The few children that escaped came home to the ‘Soft’ with little notice paid to their arrival. They joined their couple of thousand or so more sensible siblings and elders who had been working all cycle long and climbed into the burrow. As they readied to curl up to past the light time, one of the children thought of the siblings they had lost, before quickly being distracted by a million or so other members of its extended family cramming into the burrow. Come the next dark time they would join in with the rest of the workers as they should have that dark time. Their lost siblings would never be thought of again.
Deeply Red
by Jean Mutch
For a moment it all feels like a slow motion sequence from a Hollywood film I once saw. The bouquet leaves my hands and soars towards the cloudless, sapphire sky. Charlie’s on my left, suited and slicked. His steel-blue eyes glinting with laughter as he turns to me. Mum and Dad a little further off to the right. Dad’s chest puffed to match his stomach. The veins visible through the thin moisture on his forehead. Mum still with the deepening line between her eyebrows she says was never there before I was born. No need to worry now, though. I’ve got Charlie. His hand finds mine as we watch the bouquet arc and begin to fall. It’s a good, strong hand. Like Dad’s. A safe hand. He smiles as the squeals behind us reach a crescendo. I turn to see Emily holding the bouquet triumphantly aloft. A dozen roses. So deeply red, they’re almost black at the heart.
It’s the perfect climax to the perfect day he promised me. Charlie’s free hand cups my chin and pulls my face to his. The stubble’s roughness round my mouth tells me it’s been a long day, although it feels like no more than a moment. Strange how you can know someone so well after such a short time. My beautiful Charlie. It’s sad his mother couldn’t be here though.
“We could wait till she’s better,” I said, when Charlie got the call from the hospital.
“She wouldn’t want that,” he said. “Anyway, we’ve sent out the invitations now.”
Back at the hotel there’s a four-poster bed. Champagne and oysters waiting on ice. Charlie’s thought of everything. I’ve never tasted oysters before. Charlie shows me how to slide them into my mouth, like a slug of seawater.
“They’re an aphrodisiac,” he says, draining his glass as he watches me swallow.
“I don’t need one when you’re around.”
I lean in to kiss him, but he’s grabbing for the second bottle of champagne. Just for a second, I think he’s forgotten I’m here.
Tonight in the four-poster is the closest thing to heaven. Charlie’s just the best lover in the world. Gentle. Considerate. Insatiable. It’s like we’re in our own private world. An endless bubble where nothing can touch us. I have to get up around 4am. When I come back, Charlie’s at the window, lighting a cigarette. He’s drawn back the heavy, brocade curtains and the sky’s just tinged with pink. The formal garden below casts deep shadows and the silver birch near the window is shivering and whispering. I slide my arms around Charlie and kiss him between the shoulder blades. He shudders and leans back against me, drawing in in a deep draught of tobacco smoke.
We decided some time before the wedding that there was no point in going away for a honeymoon. Just the wedding night in a really posh hotel. Actually, I think it was Charlie who decided, but I couldn’t help but agree when he rolled over around 7.30 one morning, kissed me and slid his hand slowly down over my stomach.
“There’d be no point really,” he said. “We wouldn’t see anything but the hotel room.”
Somehow he was on top of me then and the discussion was over.
And of course, he was right. We got home four days ago and we’ve barely emerged from the bedroom. I’ve lost all sense of time. And if I’m honest, I could do with a decent meal. The wedding dress on the back of the door is the only reminder that there ever was a world outside these walls. It’s hanging at a very slight angle and I keep wanting to get up and straighten it. Charlie follows me every time I go anywhere. I’m starting to crave personal space, but I have a niggling sense he wouldn’t like it much if I told him. The butterflies in my stomach don’t feel quite so good any more.
Charlie gets up to go to the bathroom. I’m about to follow when a strange sound intrudes. My phone. Charlie scowls and walks out. Everyone’s left us in peace since the wedding, but Emily hasn’t been able to wait any longer. She wants all the gory details. We’re deep in conversation, so I don’t know how long Charlie’s been standing there when I put the phone down. His face is half-covered in shaving foam and the razor’s in his hand. He looks comical and sweet.
“Who was that?”
“Emily.”
“Didn’t sound like Emily. What did she want?”
“Just a chat. She wanted to know how I was.”
“Well, you’re OK aren’t you? Why wouldn’t you be?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Of course I am.”
“So why did she call?”
“She’s my friend. We call each other.”
“Hmph.”
He disappears into the bathroom again. I sit on the bed, trying to make sense of the change of atmosphere. Charlie reappears, wiping his face.
“Suddenly you don’t want to come with me, then?”
“I was thinking.”
His face darkens.
“Thinking, huh? Boyfriend made you think, did he?”
He hurls the towel across the room. It catches on the top of the mirror and hangs.
“Boyfriend?”
The towel flops to the floor.
“See. You admit it. That wasn’t Emily at all.”
“Of course it was Emily.”
I can’t take it in. A moment ago we were happy. Now I’m a naughty child. I’ve no idea what I’ve done wrong. Tears well up.
“Don’t start none of that crying. Just ‘cause you’ve been caught out. Slag.”
“I’m not. I mean, I haven’t. How can you say that? Check the phone if you don’t believe me.”
“Do I look stupid?”
“Of course not.”
He’s right in my face now. He’s cleaned his teeth. Everything’s minty. I flinch. He flips.
“You really think I’m a twat, don’t you? All that lovey-dovey stuff. Laughing. I could hear his voice from the other side of the room. That wasn’t a woman you were talking to. You think I’m deaf as well as daft?”
He recoils and stomps off to the bathroom. I follow. Bewildered. He turns on me. His lip curls.
“By the way, your breath smells. Brush your fucking teeth.”
That’s so unfair. I trail after him.
“Charlie.”
“What?”
He’s pulling on his boxers. He doesn’t even look at me.
“I love you.”
I know it’s pathetic. He zips his trousers. Pulls the belt a notch too tight. Drags a clean T-shirt over his head. Then he comes towards me and cups my chin in his hand. I purse for the kiss. He spits in my face. He shoves me against the doorpost and stalks down the stairs.
I’m shaking. I wash my face. Once. Twice. It doesn’t feel any cleaner. I pull on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and follow Charlie. He’s in the kitchen, rooting through the fridge.
“There’s nothing in here.”
And that’s my fault? He pulls out the milk. Sniffs it. Growls and throws the bottle in the sink. A fountain of off milk splatters everywhere.
“This is a fucking joke. I’m going out to get something to eat. You’d better clean up this mess before I get back. And don’t you be phoning the boyfriend. I’ll be watching you.”
He’s gone.
The house is still and scary wit
hout him. It’s my house for fuck’s sake. How can it be scary? I don’t know where he’s gone or how long he’ll be, so I decide to clean up the kitchen first. At least he won’t be able to have a go about that. I’ve just wiped the last of the milk off the tiles when the phone goes. A text. I want to ignore it. Best not.
Love you little brown eyes xxx
Love you too my blue eyed boy xxx
It makes me feel better. Maybe he was hungry. Or stir crazy. Like me. I’ve no appetite now though, so I sit down on the sofa and open up the laptop. I can upload some of the wedding photos. There’s a great one Emily took of Charlie and me cutting the cake. My Facebook page is covered with messages. I click ‘like’ on each one and post a status update:
Thanks for the messages everyone. I’m officially the happiest woman in the world :-)
How easy to believe my own lie. On the other hand, something tells me Charlie won’t be the happiest man if he comes home and finds me on Facebook, so I don’t hang around. I’m about to log out when People you may know catches my eye. I always check in case some blast from my past is skulking there. Today, there’s someone called Anna Denning. I don’t know her from Adam. We have one mutual friend. Charlie. I check her profile. She’s pretty. About my age. Looks like me, come to think of it. The profile says she’s married, but it doesn’t say who to. I know so little about Charlie’s family. It’s almost like he doesn’t have a past.
I’m watching Come Dine With Me and drinking disgusting black coffee with loads of sugar when the next text arrives. My hand’s all trembly.
Huge kiss and cuddle for my little brown eyes xxx I love you so much xxx
Huge kiss and cuddle for you my blue eyed boy xxx I love you too xxx When r u coming home?
He doesn’t reply.
By nine-thirty I’ve drunk four cups of coffee. Each with more sugar than the last. My mouth’s sticky, my stomach’s growling and I’m worried. Part of me longs to hear Charlie’s key in the door. The more rational part tells me it’d be better if I never heard it again. The phone goes. I hate that sound.
