by Tim O'Rourke
“There are tigers beneath that underpass,” the old woman said, her false teeth loosening around her withered gums.
“Tigers?” Michael said, his stomach tightening at the sight of his grandmother rearranging her teeth with a grey coloured tongue. “There ain’t no tigers beneath the underpass.”
“Calling your poor old Nan a liar, are you?” she said, fixing him with a beady stare.
Shuffling from foot to foot, Michael snatched up his rucksack and threw it over his shoulder. “Nah, I’m not calling you a liar – it’s just that I can’t believe there are…”
“Children have gone missing,” the old woman cut in, her bones creaking as she sat further back in her armchair. “Boys and girls the same age as you – gone, disappeared, never to be seen again.”
With a nervous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Michael said, “Nan, I’m not six anymore – I’m fourteen. You can’t scare me with your ghost stories.”
“It isn’t a ghost story, Mikey,” she said, pointing at him with a finger that was crooked and bent out of shape. “There are tigers beneath that underpass. They hide in the shadows – no one ever sees them until it’s too late.”
“Ah c’mon, Nan!” Michael groaned as he headed for the door. “I aint afraid of no gang of hoodies. That group of low-lives that hang around beneath the underpass don’t scare me.”
“They’re tigers!” the old woman croaked, her voice sounding rasping and old.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Michael looked at his grandmother and said, “That gang of hoodies can call themselves the Black Panthers for all I care. I ain’t scared of ‘em.” Without saying another word, Michael yanked open the front door and left his grandmother’s house. There was a clicking sound and Michael wasn’t sure whether it was the sound of the latch locking as he shut the door behind him, or the sound of his grandmother pushing her false teeth back into place with her tongue.
Pulling the collar of his blazer about his neck, Michael lowered his head against the rain that spattered his face like needlepoints. The streets were dark and deserted as he made his way across town to his home. The rain hissed as it bounced off the pavement and tarmac. The sound reminded him of Clarence the family cat, spitting and hissing at the dog that lived next door. Listening to that sound and the thought of the family pet made his mind wander to thoughts of bigger cats – tigers, in fact.
There are tigers beneath that underpass!
Michael could hear his Nan’s voice in his head.
“Poor, old Nan,” he whispered to himself, as he cut through the darkness and across the park towards home. “Losing her marbles, I guess.” And his whisper was snatched away from his lips by the wind that circled him.
Screeeeech! Screeeeech! Screeeeech!
Michael stopped. The sound had been sudden. Had it been a wail? The sound of an animal close by? A tiger, perhaps? Michael peered over the collar of his blazer. The sound came again. A screeching sound, like an animal in pain.
There are tigers! The voice whispered in his ear, and it was his grandmother’s.
“There ain’t no tigers!” Michael said aloud.
The sound came again – like fingernails being dragged across ice.
“Why did Nan have to try and scare me like that?” Michael groaned, his heart racing behind his chest like a trip-hammer. Then through the driving rain, Michael saw what it was that was making the noise.
The swings swung back and forth in the wind as if being pushed by the ghosts of children who had come back from their graves to have one last night of fun in the park.
“I knew there were no tigers,” Michael laughed at himself. Pulling his blazer tight, he set off again towards home and the underpass.
However hard he fought the urge, Michael couldn’t help but quicken his step. It was as if he no longer had control over his legs. At first his stride got longer, swallowing up the pavement in front of him like a ravenous animal. Then his pace got faster, a slow trot at first – then a quick jog – until his legs were pin-wheeling beneath him like propellers. Then he was racing through the evening streets, away from the swings in the park, but most of all from his grandmother’s rasping voice and her warning of tigers.
Michael reached the path that led home. He lent forward and sucked mouthfuls of air into his burning lungs. He buried his fingers deep into the flesh beneath his ribcage and tried to ease the stitch that smouldered inside him like a hot poker. Michael knew that just on the other side of the hill that stood before him like an ogre was his house, warm, dry and safe.
Michael eyed the hill before him, black, wet, and slippery. He could climb it, but he felt exhausted, damp, and cold. Rain ran down the hill in tiny rivulets and he could picture himself slipping, tumbling over and over in the mud and breaking an arm, or worse, a leg. He thought of the cup-tie he was playing in that weekend and didn’t want to risk an injury before match day.
There was another option. Michael didn’t have to risk climbing over the hill – he could go underneath it – he could take the underpass. Michael looked at the entrance to the underpass and it was dark and wide like the jaws of a giant beast – a tiger’s jaws.
There are tigers beneath the underpass! His grandmother’s voice croaked in his ear again.
Forcing the sound of her voice away, Michael walked towards the entrance. He stood within its concrete jaws and the smell of urine, vomit, and stale cannabis smoke wafted under his nose and made him feel sick. Placing one foot in front of the other, he stepped inside. Only minutes ago, his feet had been unable to stop moving – whispering above the rain-soaked pavement. But now they felt like lumps of lead disappearing into quicksand. Michael forced himself onwards.
There are tigers… his Nan’s voice started up again.
“Go away, will ya!” Michael hissed at the voice inside his head.
“There ain’t no tigers here!”
The underpass was lit with a strip of fluorescent lights, but most had been smashed by vandals, leaving pools of murky light every few yards. The tiled walls had been decorated with graffiti. Slogans and symbols had been painted. Michael could see a red line of paint that had been sprayed from a can in an arc across the wall of the underpass. He looked at it, and in the dim light of the underpass he thought that the paint could have been blood, sprayed from the throat of someone attacked by a ti…
Then there were shadows in the corner of his eye, and Michael turned away from the paint…
Blood? and peered into the gloom.
“Who’s there?” Michael called out, his voice echoing off the underpass walls like drum beats.
Silence.
“Is anyone there?” he called again.
Silence.
Screwing up his eyes, Michael strained to see what was making the shadows ahead of him. They were tall, pointed, and moved slowly towards him. The shadows were far too tall to be tigers and a nervous laugh escaped him as he thought of how stupid he was being.
“The only tigers down here are the members of that gang,” he assured himself.
The shadows came closer.
“What do you want?” Michael called out.
Closer still.
“Look, if you think you’re gonna rob a mobile from me, you’re outta luck. I don’t even own a phone.”
Closer.
“Look, I’m just on my way home,” Michael said, and his voice sounded high-pitched and broken. He felt his innards tighten, and his stomach made an odd gargling sound like acid sloshing around in a bucket. “I don’t want any trouble. I just want to go home.”
In the darkness, inches ahead of him, six bright orange lights appeared. They glowed like hot coals on a roaring fire. Michael stared at them. At first he couldn’t figure out what they were. They blinked on and off like the indicators on a car. Then as they came nearer, he realised with dread what they were.
The eyes stared at him from the darkness. Three sets of blazing orange eyes.
But what or who would have orange eye
s? Michael screamed inside as he stumbled backwards down the underpass.
There are… his grandmother’s voice began again in his ear.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, Nan!” Michael screeched, covering his ears with his hands. “There ain’t no…”
The last of his sentence was drowned out by a deafening snarling sound. The noise came at him like a wave and knocked him from his feet in a rush of hot air. Michael slammed into the ground, forcing the air from his lungs. The shadows before him began to change shape, growing longer and sleeker-looking. They sauntered towards him, powerful but graceful.
Michael tried to scream, but the only noise that came from his throat was a gagging sound. He didn’t even scream as the giant orange and black striped paw sprung from the darkness and opened his chest. Michael looked down in disbelief at the gaping crimson hole. He then looked up into the tiger’s face. For a moment he thought that the creature looked beautiful with its white and orange muzzle. Its whiskers glinted like lengths of silver thread in the murky light of the underpass. Then that glimpse of beauty was gone. The tiger opened his powerful jaws revealing rows of jagged teeth. Michael could feel the heat of the tiger’s breath against his cheek and the smell of dead things and flesh wafting from its slobbering tongue. Then that beautiful white muzzle turned red – brilliant red - as the tiger buried its face into Michael’s chest.
There are tigers beneath that underpass, Michael heard his grandmother whisper in his ear one last time.
Ratbag
Frannie Lauderdale walked slowly down the long corridor. The echoey snap of her heels on the stone floor made a chattering sound like a woman’s teeth rattling together in the cold. Frannie suddenly stopped short, and a thin gasp of surprise slipped from between her lips as a sudden streak of purple lightning streaked the dark sky outside. A coating of luminous colours splashed Frannie’s face as her grey eyes grew wide with fright. She hastened her step.
Dougie Nicholson stepped from the shadows several yards behind Frannie, who he had been following. He paused for a moment as the girl ahead stopped, as the lightning raged in anger outside again. Dougie heard her sudden gasp as it slipped back over her shoulder towards him. The school corridor flashed with a sudden burst of light and his face looked as if it had been carved from alabaster. The flash of light disappeared as quickly as it had come, and the girl started to move on towards the chapel at a faster pace.
Dougie followed, not because he wanted to hurt her – but because he was in love with Frannie. He loved everything about her and he was sure that he was the only boy at St. Stephen’s High School who did. The other boys and all of the girls, in fact, didn’t like her because she was different. She came from a family that was very poor, and she dressed from the flea market and some said that she smelt real bad. But there was something else that made her different - Frannie had one big, fat juicy secret. A secret – a dark secret – which Dougie knew nothing about. A secret he had to discover for himself. Dougie had only been at St. Stephen’s High School a month, and in that time he had made several friends – who, if he were being honest with himself, he didn’t like none too much. He had been placed in detention three times for failing to hand in homework on time, and had fallen in love with the school Ratbag.
So that’s why he was following her today, to discover her secret, which kept him from sleeping at night. The other kids on the schoolyard had hinted many times that the secret had something to do with what she carried in the brown paper bag that she carried clutched to her swelling chest. But Dougie wondered if the stories about this dark secret were not just wicked lies, rumours spread about Frannie because she was different. Dougie knew that if there wasn’t any gossip to spread, then people usually made up their own. That’s what Dougie needed to find out – did Frannie really have a dark and terrible secret?
Frannie bobbed up and down as she moved towards the chapel, a quiet place where she could be alone. Her fountain of rich, auburn hair cascaded down her back like lava. Her two thin arms hung from the sleeves of her grubby T-shirt. Her checked skirt, held together at the waist with a safety pin, swished about her knees. Her legs were creamy in colour and slipped away into a pair of scuffed brown shoes. As she made her way down the corridor, she would pause suddenly as the lightning continued to split the sky in two on the other side of the stained-glass windows. Rain spattered the windows, which loomed up on her left every few feet. Frannie would sometimes disappear in the gloominess and then reappear when she passed one of those windows. Purple flashes of light almost seemed to soak her up.
Careful not to be seen by her, Dougie followed at a safe distance, loving the sudden glimpses he got of her. Every time she halted, he would duck into the shadows, just in case she stole a quick glance back over her shoulder. But he didn’t really need to bother. His school uniform was all black; the only pale garment was his face.
Her scuffed shoes continued to make a snap-slap sound on the cold stone floor, and in the flashes of light, he thought she looked beautiful and he couldn’t understand the cruel comments that the other kids made about her. He had often brushed deliberately against her in the corridor, hoping that she would lift her head and notice him, but she never did. But when he was close to her like that, her hair and skin had smelt of soap. The end of the corridor loomed ahead.
Frannie disappeared to her right with a quick swish of her flowing hair. The snap-slap of her worn-down heels slowly ebbed away as she bobbed into the chapel. She paused by the open doorway, and with a flick of her right wrist, she dipped her doll-like fingers into the small font fastened to the chapel wall. She made the sign if the cross by touching her forehead and chest, then walked slowly into the dimly-lit chapel.
Dougie ducked right and stopped flat against the wall as he watched Frannie moved down the threadbare carpet that lined the floor between the rows of seats. The chapel was barely lit by a cluster of slow burning candles in the corner. Dougie watched his love as she bobbed down the aisle. Once he was sure that he wasn’t going to be seen by her, Dougie stepped from the safety of the shadows. But almost at once he was forced to hide in them again, as Frannie came to a sudden halt ahead of him. Dougie spied on her, his chest rising with laboured, anxious breaths. Plumes of air escaped from his mouth in wispy clouds and disappeared into the freezing cold chapel.
Frannie had stopped by the end of a pew. Then, as if not believing what he was seeing, Frannie appeared to be sinking into the ground. Dougie screwed his eyes almost shut as he peered into the darkness. But to his relief, he could see she was only genuflecting in front of the huge crucifix which hung on the wall. Frannie stayed on her knees, her hair looking as if it were on fire as it reflected back the spooky candlelight. With that brown paper bag clutched to her chest, Frannie crawled between the rows of pews. It was as if she disappeared in stages, first her head, then shoulders, upper body, bottom, legs, then last of all, her feet. Dougie frowned as he watched her hide between the pews.
He waited for just a few seconds, then left the coldness of the shadows and followed the path Frannie had taken down the centre of the chapel. The white stone walls almost seemed to come alive as the candlelight flickered off them in a sudden draught. Dougie shivered, his skin over run with gooseflesh. A steady hiss of rain could be heard from overhead as it drummed against the rickety roof. Dougie’s trainers whispered on the carpet with each step he took nearer to Frannie as she sheltered in her hiding place.
He could see the two pews that she had crawled between just ahead. As he got nearer, he walked on tiptoe. He didn’t want to make a sound. Dougie didn’t want to disturb Frannie if he were to discover her big, fat, juicy secret. He slowed then stopped, just behind the pew where Frannie had performed her disappearing act. Lowering himself onto his hands and knees, Dougie crawled into the gap between the pews. He had gone a short distance, when he stopped to listen. Up ahead, on the other side of the pew, he heard a rustling sound, then a frantic squealing noise. With his heart racing in his ears, he knew that he w
as just inches away from discovering Frannie’s secret.
Dougie drew level with her on the opposite side of the pew. The rustling sound came again, and it sounded as if someone or something were struggling. Drawing a deep breath, Dougie waited and waited and waited, then suddenly popped his head up and peered over the top of the pew. He looked down and he shoved a fist into his mouth to stifle a scream.
Frannie sat with her legs drawn up to her chest, back arched as she chewed away at a sandwich. But the sandwich looked as if it were moving – squirming – somehow. Between the two thick white slices of bread which Frannie had sunk her teeth into, something fat, black and hairy wriggled between the slices. Then, he saw it – something pink, thin, and long, swishing frantically from side to side. It was a tail – a rat’s tail. He made a gaging noise in the back of his throat, and Frannie heard it. Snapping her head around, she looked up at Dougie. But instead of looking shocked at finding him there, she just smiled sweetly at him, black clumps of wiry black fur sticking out from between her teeth.
Then, cocking an eyebrow, she held out her hand and offered him the half-eaten sandwich. Dougie smiled back at Frannie, and stretching out his hand, he plucked the writhing sandwich from her and took a bite.
Paisley End
Shane Cole sat behind the wheel of his old Ford truck. The windscreen wipers squeaked back and forth furiously as they tried to drive off the falling rain. The truck rattled and shook as it moved slowly down the winding country lanes. Dark clouds moved across the leafy sky. Bluish–mauve sparks of lightning flashed from behind the clouds and lit up the sky like a crazy firework display. Thunder sounded as if a thousand iron balls were being rolled across the floors of heaven. Rain fell heavier in long, sparkling streaks. Mud spattered up off the road and freckled the bumper, mud-guards, and sides of the truck, yet it rumbled on. Fields stretched out on either side of the road, and they looked dull and grey through the rain.
